---

Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I should like to comment on Amendment 64ZA. I am sorry to inflict yet another medical opinion on the House but there is one factor which has not been mentioned in the planning of emergency services—that is, the fact that the vast majority of patients in medical wards are admitted through the emergency department, coming in as acute emergencies. This is quite unlike the situation in surgical wards. They, too, have their ration of emergencies but the majority of patients are admitted from waiting lists, and this is where the waiting list initiative and so on come in. However, when planning for medical beds, one has to think in terms of the accident and emergency department being the major route by which these patients enter the hospital and, in planning for emergency services, one has to think of the bed needs associated with that.