A& E Departments: Staffing — House of Commons, 2020-03-23
Topic: Health
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for calling this debate and for leading us in that tribute to the NHS workforce. As we stand here, our NHS faces daunting challenges, as it will continue to do for weeks and months to come. I, too, want to take a moment this evening to thank each and every one of our health and care staff and their individual families for all they are doing for our country at this most challenging of times. I know they are making incredible sacrifices, selflessly working at the frontline in looking after our families in our hour of need, while their families are at home concerned for their safety and welfare. They are there on the frontline around the clock, tackling this head-on. As a country, we will be eternally grateful to them, and from us all, thank you I will also pause, if I may, to mention some of the heart-warming gestures across our communities, such as small businesses and large multinationals offering staff hot drinks and hot food, supermarkets making specific opening times for NHS and social care staff, and hotels and chains making beds available to staff to use. Thank you to each and every one of you. You do our country proud I want to assure everyone this evening and, most importantly, all our NHS staff that we are here to support them, and we will not let them down. First, we know the NHS needs more people to fill the gaps when staff have to stay home and to cope with the particular needs of patients with coronavirus. We have made a call to arms to those who have left the healthcare professions in the last three years. The healthcare regulators have been contacting doctors, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics and others to ask them to return to practise to support the coronavirus response, and the response from the workforce has been amazing. At noon today, 1,930 doctors and 5,630 nurses had responded by indicating that they were willing to return to the NHS. They will help the NHS not only to treat coronavirus patients, but to continue other emergency healthcare, including urgent operations and cancer treatments. We are also working with professional leaders across nursing, midwifery and allied healthcare professionals to see how students in their final year of study can provide support at the frontline. Our nursing leaders, staff representatives and university bodies will put out a joint statement on that tomorrow As we welcome so many doctors, nurses and allied healthcare professionals back to the NHS, we must look after them and all those who work in our health service. I know that staff at the frontline are worried and need assurances that there is sufficient personal protective equipment for everyone who should be using it. The safety of those on the frontline is of paramount importance. We have stocks of PPE nationally and NHS England is working to make sure that the NHS frontline has the equipment it needs. I know there have been problems with distribution in some places, but that is now being resolved by NHS England, which has restructured its logistics operations so that equipment should now be getting to those at the frontline who need it.