Accident and Emergency Waiting Times

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I think that most people who have heard this debate would agree that we have generated more heat than light. That is a shame, because when one hears the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), one realises that this is way beyond a party political issue. This is not about game playing or seeking political advantage for one side of the Chamber or the other. I have sufficient respect for the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State to know that neither of them wishes to go down that road. This matter is simply far too serious.

We have heard tonight that A and E services are often the indicator or signifier—like the canary in the coal mine—that warns about the condition of the rest of the national health service. We have heard about a number of factors. One accusation is that there is a lack of knowledge about A and E.

I spent 10 years working in the A and E department of the Middlesex hospital and University College hospital. I must say that I worked in an ancillary capacity, rather than as a qualified medic, although I did wear a white jacket and would occasionally bluff. There is a huge difference between A and E then and now. Like a lot of MPs, I mystery shop in my local A and E once a month, just to sit and listen to what is being said. The difference between then and now is that virtually everybody who came into the Middlesex was brought in by ambulance and there were very few walk-in patients. I am not saying that it was not in a residential area, because it was. We had an excellent Member of Parliament in my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson). Plenty of people did the right thing and voted for him. There is a difference of attitude now. That is exemplified by what we saw last week, when a mother took her daughter to a north London A and E department to ask that a doctor remove canine faeces from her daughter’s shoe in the safest possible way. There is no question but that there is a problem. People’s expectations have changed.

There have been some suggestions today. The prescription of the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) was risible. The idea that we should lie back with a scalpel in one hand, biting on a bullet and perform our own abdominal surgery was fairly ludicrous. At least, that is how I heard his proposal.

I agree that we should make more use of community pharmacists, but above all we must recognise that we are now in a different world. People do not come to A and E in the middle of the night because they want to; they come to A and E because there is not a walk-in centre they can access during the day and there is no out-of-hours GP service because most of the GPs in London are elderly, single-handed GPs. People go to A and E out of sheer desperation. Yes, there is always a fool who comes in with a headache or something, but if Members go to their local A and E, as many of us do, they will see people who are on the edge of absolute seriousness.

We have to address the totality of the issue. The hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), in one of the best argued speeches that I have ever heard, pulled the whole thing together. He did not refer to a mosaic of misery, but to all the competing factors. That is what we have to consider.

I do not see the Secretary of State as some Gargantua or Godzilla, crashing through Nye Bevan’s glorious creation and seeking to destroy it at every opportunity; I see him as a man who might be overwhelmed by the scale of the problem facing him. Let us step back from party political advantage and think about the people out there—the exhausted staff in the A and E departments and the patients in pain and agony.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee). Given the views he articulated, I hope he will come and canvass for my opponent at the next general election; we would be very happy to have him there. I say that in the context of the situation in the North West London Hospitals NHS Trust, which in 2010-11 was well within the waiting times targets for A and E. Just 2.9% of patients waited more than four hours, but by 2011-12, that figure had risen to some 10.8% at the end of the year, while for the whole of the last financial year the figure is 12.2%—the second worst set of statistics in London, surpassed only by the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, where almost 16% of patients had to wait over four hours.

[Stephen Pound]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way. In view of what he has just said, does he think that the best possible prescription is that currently recommended by the Government whereby the existing A and E departments at Ealing, Park Royal, Hammersmith and Charing Cross all close? Does he think that will improve waiting times in A and E departments?

[Mr Thomas]

My hon. Friend, as ever, is ahead of me. He makes the perfectly reasonable point that if the Northwick Park and Central Middlesex A and E departments are not achieving the 95% target now, how can our constituents have any more confidence about reaching that target should the Central Middlesex and Ealing hospitals close?