Doncaster Royal Infirmary

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My noble friend is right about the effects of a poor estate. In addition to productivity, it very much affects safety, staff working conditions and capacity. The benefits are considerable, as she identifies—and indeed as the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, identified. I assure my noble friend that we are working across government—including with the Treasury and, to the right reverend Prelate’s point, with the local ICB and trust—to tackle this. My noble friend is aware that this Government committed nearly £20 million from the critical infrastructure risk fund to the hospital’s NHS foundation to move a section to the ground floor—not the part to which my noble friend referred, but it shows the seriousness with which we are taking this.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, the injection of capital to Doncaster Royal Infirmary is welcome. When the CQC inspected DRI in 2024, it found that the hospital

“did not have enough maternity staff with the right qualifications, skills, training, and experience to keep women safe from avoidable harm”.

While the Government develop their 10-year and workforce plans, what action are they taking in the meantime to address safety concerns from a lack of adequate staffing in maternity services? While we are on the subject, given the recently announced crackdowns on immigration and that many people who work in our health and care system are immigrants, how do the Government intend to encourage more British workers to fill vacancies in health and social care?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

On that point, I feel that the Government taking the backlog very seriously, against the background of what we have inherited, will make conditions far better for staff, which will make it a far more attractive place to work. That will be reflected when we report on the workforce plan. To the point about maternity, we are recruiting extra midwives and we are looking extremely closely at how we can better support best practice—as I saw just last week—how we can extend that and how we can bring better patient safety measures into the system. I am afraid that it is another area that we inherited in a difficult position, but noble Lords can be assured that we are working on it. I look forward to updating your Lordships’ House.