§ Mr. Juddasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will make a statement on the difficulties being encountered by the Royal Hospital, Portsmouth, in dealing with its casualty and accident load; and what action he is taking to overcome these problems.
§ Mr. AlisonThe accident and emergency department of this hospital has encountered difficulties in dealing with its workload which has increased over the last seven years on average by approximately 2,000 new patients a year.
In the current year improvements have been made to the department and additional equipment has been provided; arangements with other local hospitals have helped to reduce the work of the department. However, the Wessex Regional Hospital Board considers that the main need is for a reduction in the number of patients who attend the department when not in need of hospital treatment; the co-operation of local general practitioners and of local firms has been sought in an attempt to achieve this.
My Department has issued national publicity material in the form of the Help Your Doctor leaflet and of posters for display in accident and emergency
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