I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a system of reserve National Health Service staff; and for connected purposes.
The coronavirus pandemic is the biggest challenge that our health service has faced since its creation 70 years ago. Our inspirational doctors, nurses, paramedics, and clinicians of all disciplines have risen to that challenge, alongside our NHS leaders and non-clinical staff across the country. Those include Mark Cubbon and his team at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, and Dr Raj Laly, a GP from my constituency of Havant, who also both contributed to the research for this Bill.
Supplementing that immense effort is an army of volunteers, operating on a scale not seen in this country since perhaps the Women’s Land Army of the second world war. As the coronavirus outbreak grew, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care issued his clarion call for volunteers to help the NHS, and the public responded with great energy and in huge numbers. More than 750,000 people, from all walks of life, signed up to become NHS volunteer responders. As of today, they have collectively completed more than 1 million tasks, from shopping and collecting prescriptions, to driving people to hospital and telephone befriending them. I am sure the whole House will join me in thanking everybody who came forward to support their friends, colleagues, neighbours, family and communities since the outbreak began.
Those selfless people build on a strong tradition of volunteering that has existed in the health service for many decades. There are thought to be around 80,000 volunteers across all acute trusts in England, contributing more than 13 million hours of volunteering every year. The true figures are likely to be much higher. Those dedicated individuals carry out hundreds of roles, including volunteering on wards, providing administrative support, fundraising, organising patient participation groups, helping patients to find their way around hospitals, supporting relatives of the sick and picking up medicines from pharmacies.
One lesson we must learn from the coronavirus outbreak, and an opportunity we must seize, is ensuring that we retain the skills, experience and commitments of both our existing base of volunteers, and those people who have come forward since the pandemic began. To achieve those goals, we should create the NHS reserves—a new, but recognisable and trusted, NHS brand that will fit effectively into the existing NHS family. The NHS reserves will be a new uniformed standing reserve of clinical and non-clinical volunteers, who can be called up to support our hospitals, GP surgeries, pharmacies and other healthcare providers whenever more help is needed. That might be during public health emergencies, seasonal increases in demand, or critical incidents such as terrorist attacks or major accidents. The NHS reserves brand will also help to formalise and give greater status and recognition to the many existing health service volunteers, and provide a way to retain and use the skills of recently departed or retired staff.