A& E Departments: Staffing

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I should be grateful if Members left quietly, if only because this debate is meant to be about the staffing of accident and emergency departments throughout the whole United Kingdom.

I guess that if general practice is the beating heart of the national health service, A&E departments are the keep-beating heart of the national health service. Everybody in the land has a particular emotional attachment to their local A&E department. Even if they hope that they will never need to go there, many of them will have, from their own family experiences, either a granny, a grampy, an uncle, an aunt or a child who has had to go to A&E and whose life will have been saved. For them, those will be such heightened moments of strong emotion that the local A&E will be vital and essential to them.

Sometimes, in valleys areas in south Wales and in other rural or semi-rural areas of the United Kingdom, A&E departments feel as if they are even more important, because people feel that they need to be close to home and the geography makes it difficult to get to the A&E in the critical hour to get the support, help and medical intervention that will save somebody’s life, so the attachment is felt deeply. There has been a big battle in my local area about the Royal Glamorgan Hospital’s A&E department. I am glad that the Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board has decided to put on hold any decision about the future of that A&E during the coronavirus crisis.

There have recently been significant advances in A&E, and we need to praise those who have made those advances. Major trauma centres, which the Government introduced in England—we are soon to have one in Cardiff—have made a dramatic difference in saving literally hundreds of additional lives every year. We should praise all those who have been involved in those decisions.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate on this very important subject. Does he agree that the staff in A&E departments and across our NHS really should have the protection at work that they deserve? Does he believe that when we look back at the current crisis, one issue that will really come to the fore will be the lack of protective equipment and the lack of testing that has been available up until this point, and I am afraid is still unavailable, for many of our NHS staff?

[Chris Bryant]

Two things are vital in this key moment when the NHS is fearing a tsunami coming down the road, if that is not a mixed metaphor. The first is personal protective equipment. My view is that, frankly, every single fashion brand in this country should be devoting every minute it has to trying to deliver enough PPE for all the doctors in our A&Es. Secondly, we should be straining every sinew to ensure that testing is available for every staff member in our health service, because apart from anything else, it will mean that they can get back to the frontline faster.