§ Lord Hunt of Kings Heathasked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans they have to increase the number of training places for surgical practitioners; and [HL1608]
Whether, in the light of the European Union Working Time Directive, there will be a need for an expansion in the number of surgical practitioners. [HL1609]
§ Lord WarnerThe Changing Workforce Programme is working closely with the National Association of Assistants in Surgical Practice, the Royal College of Surgeons and the NHSU to develop a curriculum and national standards for practice, for surgical practitioners, so that the number of training programmes can increase to accommodate growing numbers.
It is not possible to estimate a figure for the number of surgical practitioners needed to ensure compliance with the Working Time Directive because compliance requires a range of different approaches in different trusts and services, only some of which will involve surgical practitioners.
The 20 Working Time Directive pilot projects currently in progress include one which is testing the role of perioperative specialist practitioner, in four trusts. While this is a different role from that of surgical practitioner, it illustrates how different staff can contribute to a team-based approach to providing patient care. The project has shown that practitioners 199WA can be extremely effective both at saving junior doctor time, which can help a trust to achieve compliant rotas, and al improving the quality of patient care by, for example, reducing waiting times in clinics and enabling earlier discharge from hospital. It is working closely with the new ways of working in surgery project to share expertise and learning, and in all of these projects new practitioner roles are being combined with changes to working patterns of medical staff and to service delivery, which together improve Working Time Directive compliance.