My Lords, I, too, welcome the Statement and many of the things in it. We accept that higher mortality rates at weekends in hospital are unacceptable, so we have to try to think of ways of reducing them. Seven-day working for consultants is just one element. Consultants are important, of course. The Minister is probably aware of Brian Jarman’s publication some years ago which showed that there was an inverse correlation between the number of doctors in a hospital and the mortality rate; that is, a hospital with more doctors had a lower mortality rate. There are lessons to be learned there, especially as we in the UK seem to have fewer doctors per head of population than almost any other OECD country, and fewer beds come to that—so we are starting from a low ebb, and the points made by noble Lords about where we are going to get the extra people from are important.
However, the consultant element is just one part. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, made a very good point about the need for radiologists, physiotherapists and pathology laboratories. All the machinery of the hospital has to be there. Equally, there is the whole business of general practice and community care. Primary care at the weekend is poor, by and large; that is one of the major problems. Patients are not getting into hospital until they are in greater extremis, so they are more ill when they get there: then they require more service, and once they are there, they cannot get home because there is no one to see them home. Concentrating on consultants is just one element. What is the Minister’s response?