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Emergency Care

By amazingly happy coincidence, the NHS constitution was published this morning, and I want to read to the House two pledges. First:"““The NHS also commits to inform you about healthcare services available to you, locally and nationally””," and, secondly,"““to offer you easily accessible information to enable you to participate fully in your own healthcare decisions and to support you in making choices.””" In an emergency, that pledge will be fulfilled only if there is a three-digit telephone number that everybody can contact. People know when to ring 999, but, as I have been stating since I secured an Adjournment debate on the subject in 2007, they do not know what to do in an intermediate emergency, when they have so many alternatives to consider. The Minister, whom I am pleased to see in his place, will remember that in that July 2007 debate I drew attention to an absolute tragedy at home—the death of a little boy aged seven and a half, whose perfectly intelligent, competent parents could not work their way through the system to obtain the right care for their little boy in an area that had lost its A and E department. In Health questions on 16 December I asked about progress in achieving a single phone number, and the Minister replied that very good progress had been made. He encouraged me to be a little more patient and await the formal announcement, so I am putting him on the spot. When will the formal announcement be made? I was horrified to hear the Secretary of State say that the Government were considering going out to consultation shortly. This is so urgent. I agree that we must get it right and that we must consider the triage system to which it is connected and what happens to the ambulance triage systems and the out-of-hours services that have their own phone numbers. I agree that the matter is complex, but consultation with those bodies should be a matter of absolute urgency and priority and should take only a short time. Ensuring that the correct telephone numbers are available will help stressed A and E departments because people will be prevented from attending unnecessarily. The phone number must connect people to the relevant information about services available in their health community—A and E, urgent care centres, minor injuries units or out-of-hour services—which is likely to be served by a PCT and the emergency services under that PCT. Services must be networked, and everyone must know what each bit of the service can do.