ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY SERVICES

That this House recognises the current crisis facing the provision of accident and emergency services; acknowledges that an inadequate resourcing of the training, recruitment and retention regime is leading to a shortfall in accident and emergency health practitioners throughout the NHS; is concerned that this is putting patients at risk and creating further costs elsewhere in the system; further recognises the high cost associated with a reliance on locum doctors to provide these services; concurs with the comments made in The Independent by the President of the College of Emergency Medicine Dr Clifford Mann, stating that this problem has resulted from an under-investment in training going back to 2010 that has caused a chronic shortage in the recruitment of accident and emergency doctors; is critical of the closure of weekend accident and emergency services at the Downe Hospital in South Down and other local hospitals in Northern Ireland, which has placed an excessive strain on other accident and emergency wards including the Royal Victoria Hospital, where there was a major incident on 8 January 2014; and calls on the Government to conduct an urgent review of accident and emergency services and to work with the devolved administrations to address this problem.