LOCAL MP QUESTIONS PM OVER HOSPITAL CUTS

Tony Baldry tells Gordon Brown how working time directive is harming Horton

North Oxfordshire MP, Tony Baldry, last week questioned the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown MP, over the implementation of the working time directive (WTD) in relation to junior doctors.

Unlike every other EU member state, Britain is the only country implementing to the WTD in such a way that means junior doctors are often unavailable to train at general hospitals , like the Horton, resulting in a threat to consultant-led maternity services.  During an exchange at PMQs, Tony Baldry called on the Government to review the way in which the WTD is applied following a report by Sir John Tooke on medical careers.  The Prime Minister said the Government would be responding to the report in the next few weeks, raising concerns over whether the Government's position might effect the outcome of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel report.

Commenting after PMQs, Tony Baldry MP said:

"It is concerning that the Government don’t anticipate responding to the Tooke Report on “Modernising Medical Careers” for several weeks – presumably this may well not be until after the Secretary of State has published the IRP’s report on the Horton and depending on decision the IRP have taken.  Given the central importance of the WTD to the whole issue, it is quite difficult to see how the IRP, or indeed the Department of Health, could have sensibly determined the future of the Horton until the Government had had the opportunity of considering and responding to the Tooke Report.  When decisions as important as the future of services at the Horton are being taken, the least we should expect is joined-up Government."

The text of the exchange on 20 February is below.

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): Professor Sir John Tooke, in his inquiry on modernising medical careers, found that the United Kingdom is the only country in the European Union to apply the European working time directive in the way that we do. It is a way that endangers the delivery of consultant-led maternity and children’s services at hospitals such as mine, the Horton general hospital in Banbury. Sir John recommended that the Government look again at how the European working time directive is applied. Will the Government do so?

The Prime Minister: I believe that we are not the only country in that position, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are going to reply to the Tooke report, and that that will happen in the next few weeks.