Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Spokesman on: Foreign Doctors and G8.
Foreign Doctors
Asked if the Prime Minister was concerned about the numbers of doctors and nurses coming to the UK from developing countries and the employment of European doctors to cover weekend work, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said that in terms of doctors coming over for the weekend, those arrangements were in place following new contracts that had been agreed with GPs. Many GPs were carrying out the out-of-hours service themselves, but it was true that there were some doctors being hired from Europe to help out. The most important thing was that we had strong arrangements for out-of-hours care for patients and that was what we were providing. Asked if this was a long-term solution, the PMS said that the Department of Health were supporting the out-of-hours service through the Primary Care Trusts. £316 million had been available last year for out-of-hours services and most important factor was that these services were provided to those who needed them and that a high quality of service was maintained.
Asked if were concerned by reports that some foreign doctors couldn’t understand their patients, the PMOS said that doctors language skills were assessed.
G8
Asked about the G8 communiqué on climate change, the PMS reminded journalists that firstly she didn’t usually comment on leaked documents and secondly this document had been a draft. We were three weeks away from the G8 meeting. The most important communiqué would come out of that meeting and we should wait for that. Asked about the details of the draft documents, the PMS said there would be many drafts around, that was the nature of a draft document.
Asked if the Government accepted that climate change was happening, the PMS said that everyone agreed that there was a need to tackle climate change. Asked why in that case we were delaying our strategy by six months, the PMS said that we did have the G8 coming up and we were committed to dealing with this problem.
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