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Patient Safety

That is a good idea. Some hospital trusts claim to have achieved the 48 hours. As far as I can see, this is a tick-box exercise. Some students are complaining that they are not getting the experience and there are concerns among senior and experienced surgeons that standards will slip. We cannot afford to take that risk. I was a panellist on a British Medical Association question time at Southampton university where Sir Bernard Ribeiro advised all the students to opt out of the European working time directive. I thought that was slightly unhealthy and that it put unfair pressure on some students for various reasons. It would be helpful to review the situation, as the hon. Member for Wyre Forest said, with a view to working towards a derogation. That should not be impossible. In conclusion, there are some easy things that can be done, such as making a board member in each trust responsible for patient safety. Those things are likely to happen. However, some fundamental factors at the heart of improving patient safety, such as training and emphasising human factors, will be more difficult to achieve. As the NHS is going to be financially constrained and these matters are not even on the agenda yet, a big push is needed to ensure that they are at the forefront of everybody's thinking, because that would benefit all of our constituents in the long run.