§ 1. Mr. Jim MarshallTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has to increase the time that medical students spend on occupational health issues during their training.
§ The Minister for Health (Dr. Brian Mawhinney)Medical students already learn about occupational health medicine as part of the standard undergraduate medical curriculum. The General Medical Council has responsibility for the content of the curriculum and has recently issued a discussion document proposing changes. Those include proposals to increase our future doctors' knowledge of occupational health matters. The Government fully support the General Medical Council's proposals.
§ Mr. MarshallI thank the Minister. On a personal note, it makes a change to have discussions other than during Northern Ireland business.
The Minister must realise that occupational health is not taught in seven out of 27 medical schools, and in many others it is treated casually. If the hon. Gentleman has discussions with the GMC, will he impress upon it the need to make occupational health a core subject rather than allow it to remain a peripheral subject?
§ Dr. MawhinneyI reciprocate the hon. Gentleman's first remark.
I take the hon. Gentleman's point. It was partially his concern that caused the GMC to issue its proposals. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to occupational health being an important part of the medical undergraduate curriculum.
§ Dr. Goodson-WickesI welcome my hon. Friend's admission that occupational health has not always been 726 taught as well as it might have been. Will he assure the House that when he consults the GMC, he will pay particular attention to comparative studies with the services offered by our Community partners which, in many respects, have a much more sophisticated system?
§ Dr. MawhinneyI am grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion.
§ Mr. MorganWill the Minister, in his discussions with the GMC, also consider the effect of the present restrictions on hospital intakes on the quality of medical training? I quote a letter from the consultants at Llandough hospital, which serves my constituency—
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but we do not have quotations at Question Time. He may paraphrase briefly.
§ Mr. MorganA letter to me from consultants at Llandough hospital, which provides medical training for south-east Wales, refers to the fact that medical training is suffering because of the current restrictions on intakes. The dean of the medical school is concerned that, with no paediatric intake, no gyneacological elective operations and no waiting list in elective surgery, junior doctors do not have enough work to do and medical students are not being properly trained. What will the Minister do about that?
§ Dr. MawhinneyI have no doubt that, if the hon. Gentleman wants us to take the matter seriously, he will be in correspondence with us and we shall look at the letter that he has received from his constituents. However, that matter goes much wider than this question.