Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 11:16 am on 24 July 2025.
Baroness Walmsley
Liberal Democrat
11:16,
24 July 2025
My Lords, all new therapies require specialists to deliver them but, according to the Royal College of Radiologists, there is a shortage of both diagnostic and interventional radiology consultants. I accept that the specialist training takes six years, but the benefits of increasing that workforce are crucial to the Government’s objective of shortening waiting lists, as the Minister just suggested. What progress is being made to increase the number of those specialists? If there are logjams anywhere, what is being done to remove them?
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
