---

Health Bill [HL]

First, a debate like this shows the tremendous strength, expertise and personal experience in the Committee; I have found it very moving. To take up the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, to think that we will be doing a lot more building in the future is pretty unrealistic. With our tremendous difficulty with resources, globally as well as in this country, I cannot see new units being built. That is why there is great strength in the amendment. It says that we must work with what we have. The secret is in how we are going to commission, using the available services. I like the idea of the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, that we should perhaps have an interim solution. I see the Minister looking more and more glum as she replies to the debate. I suspect that she will say that she is very sorry but she cannot go with a national bed bureau, so we will have to try to think of other ways of resolving some of these problems. As I have said, we must do it through commissioning. The other area is awareness. I am appalled by some of the statistics. Just 19 per cent of new injuries were admitted on the day of injury, yet we have heard from people with enormous expertise that speed is of the essence; I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, has got her society going and tried to increase awareness of the issue. Can the Minister, thinking forward, say in her reply what the Government can do to ensure that there is much greater awareness of that, especially in accident and emergency units but also throughout the country? It is important that people are admitted within four hours of the injury if at all possible.