Southmead Hospital Staffing Crisis

EDM number 488 in 1992-93, proposed by Dawn Primarolo on 13/07/1992.

That this House is appalled to note that the Southmead Health Care Trust has cut medical staff by 25 per cent. when the number of patients being cared for by those staff has increased by over 33 per cent.; notes that there is inadequate and dangerously low medical cover at certain times of the day for all emergencies in the hospital and that junior doctors at the hospital are working horrendous hours in an attempt to provide medical cover; and therefore calls on the Government to immediately provide sufficient funds for the hospital to employ the number of medical staff necessary to cover patients and to institute an immediate public inquiry into the cause of this crisis and ascertain whether it is the result of Government underfunding of the National Health Service or the incompetence of local management.

This motion has been signed by a total of 32 MPs.