Integrated Care Boards

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. The last I was aware of—and I shall look at it and write to my noble friend—was that, under the visa scheme, we were looking to bring in people from overseas to fill those vacancies. We have historically done that; as I said, after the war we looked to people from the Commonwealth, who came and saved our public services. Clearly, when we are unable to recruit enough people locally, we have to look at those issues and at whether it is something to do with the education system, and whether we can encourage them to come forward. But where there are gaps we will have to look more widely to our partners around the world.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, when the Minister took the Bill through the House, he argued that a restructuring was necessary to integrate services, yet outside every acute hospital dozens of ambulances are stacked up every day, often waiting for hours with patients inside, because we have a disintegrated system. Can he show me what the integrated care boards are doing today to end that dreadful practice?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

One priority of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State—I think he is still the Secretary of State—has been to look at the ambulance system. On a wall in his office, he has all the various things; he has talked to various partners and he has brought people together to see what the problems are, why we are unable to unload patients into hospitals, what the blockages are and how we can address this from a systemic view.