Ambulance Waiting Times: Royal Cornwall Hospital — House of Commons, 2022-06-29
Topic: Health
Cherilyn Mackrory (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and welcome him to the House for his first contribution. He will be aware that the CCG is responsible for distributing and commissioning services within his area. Therefore, this is not something that Ministers should have to implement. He should lobby his own CCG if he thinks that that is a beneficial service for his area The report also identified that adult social care in Cornwall has one of the highest rates of staff shortages in the entire country. It is right that the hospital has a comprehensive handover delay improvement plan that aims to maintain patient safety, to ensure the health and safety of trust staff and to promote effective joint working. These will cover key areas including: incidents management; reporting and external reviews; internal and external communication; data quality; and joint handover escalation plans The CCG is also taking positive action, working with the Conservative Cornwall Council, to use commission spend to try to bring more reablement workers online with more flexible care across Cornwall. In addition, it is plugging gaps in domiciliary care in central and mid-Cornwall, and in district nursing teams. Seventy five reablement workers will come online from November, and they are working with Health Education England to transfer their apprenticeship levy so that it is possible to employ even more people across Cornwall The CCG is also identifying young people who might want to stay in Cornwall. It has been learning from the work on recruitment fairs of the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, which is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), and which has successfully attracted young people in Plymouth wishing to remain in the area In addition, the CCG is ensuring that joined-up, accessible care in local communities is treated as a priority, responding to local needs with the inclusion of NHS services, organisations and charities. The new integrated care board, which meets for the first time on Friday, will utilise existing assets in the community to improve the availability of care services It is also right that the providers of the Integrated Urgent Care Service have been commissioned for a six-month pilot to test new methods for handling incoming calls. This involves ensuring that low priority calls are being assessed by a clinician, such as a GP, and in turn being directed to the most appropriate setting for treatment and care. The initial phases of the pilot have provided a clear demonstration of positive outcomes for patients, showing a 71% reduction in the need for ambulances, so it is right that it is upscaling this approach to continue to reduce demand on the ambulance service Another trial aims to remove ambulance need for non-injury falls, by ensuring that calls are pulled from the call stack and passed to the IUCS call centre in Truro, where a dispatcher can dispatch a resource from the independent ambulance service. This means that where someone has fallen but is not at risk from an injury that might mean they should not be moved, they are attended and settled into a more comfortable place within their own home. They then have a follow-up referral with a community team, which aims to identify why they fell, allowing it to put in place safeguards to prevent reoccurrence. Early data has shown that, in positive cases, where paramedics have responded and assessed, the person is placed back in bed in their own home within an hour I am also pleased that the CCG is working on the vital development of facilities at Bodmin Hospital, including the development of the urgent treatment centre, the community assessment and treatment unit and the diagnostic hub, which will all contribute to reducing the care pressures that Cornwall faces and the pressure on the RCHT The next few weeks see the standing down of the CCG and the standing up of the integrated care system, which will provide a much more collaborative approach to the healthcare system. As a new MP, I will be grateful for that, because, learning on the job means that we have to learn what board does what, and now there will be just one board that is accountable. I am also grateful to the Government for already taking a range of actions to tackle this issue. In 2020, I was delighted that the hospital had £42.5million-worth of debt written off as part of the Government’s announcement to reset NHS finances. After NHS England announced its goal for a seven-minute average for ambulance response time, the Government stepped in with a £55 million investment in the NHS, helping to provide 700 additional staff in control rooms and on the frontline to improve response times That is alongside £4.4 million to keep an additional 154 ambulances on the road over the winter. In addition, NHS 111 is recruiting an extra 1,100 staff. Moreover a £250 million winter GP capacity fund will help to avoid unnecessary ambulance calls and visits to A&E. The Government are also right to have taken the difficult decision, which was unpopular in some corners, to implement the 1.25% health and social care levy, raising £12 billion a year on average over the next three years to fix the social care crisis Despite that progress, we still have an alarming situation, which is why the Government must look at all options to tackle the problem. They must look urgently at tackling the staffing shortages preventing us from moving patients out of hospital beds and into domiciliary care. Constituents who are already being cared for at home are seeing a reduction in care packages due to staff shortages, which will clearly have a cumulative effect on trying to discharge hospital patients Cornwall has recently been found to have the country’s most understaffed social care system, with ongoing challenges around recruitment and retention. Employers in the space compete for staff with the hospitality and retail sectors, with cost of living increases and housing affordability and availability problems adding to the weight of issues. I should add that that was the case before the pandemic, but it has been compounded by the effect of covid and we see it acutely now We must advertise care as a profession and a career path, not just a job. We should look at creative new measures to make the profession more attractive, improve the workplace culture, tackle burnout and offer higher salaries. We must also ensure staff can afford to rent or buy affordably in the area by tackling the housing crisis and promoting key worker housing. The Government must also recognise the challenges of rurality, an ageing population, higher demand for services and the hangover from covid, which have all contributed to this issue. I believe we should also increase the number of first responders in rural areas and look at the model of the parish nurse; both are vital to the local village I live in Reducing ambulance waiting times at the Royal Cornwall Hospital is an urgent issue for the people of Cornwall. I look forward to working with the Government on a range of solutions available to improve the situation, and of course the Minister is always welcome to come and visit.