Not wanting to detract from your main point Geoff, but the Pontefract A&E is a little more complicated than that. In general at any NHS hospital, there are a few army, navy and RAF doctors working there, normally on registrar rotation in many specialties.

That isn't quite the same as "borrowing" teams, which can be a waste of taxpayer's money as in Pontefract's case The A&E was upgraded for political purposes by dint of the many Labour ex Ministers in your patch, and especially our Yvette... the trust knew of the issues of recruitment, the board had misgivings about the upgrade and the Strategic Health Authority had already spoken of centralising emergency care, as ambulances were already diverting to Pinderfields, Doncaster or Leeds for major trauma.

Cameron's gang didn't get wind of anything, they supported the PCTs and SHA in their regional commissioning plan for out of hours emergency care. This government have made lots of awful, sometimes dangerous political decisions about NHS care, but it would be wrong to pin this one on them. Cooper/Balls/Hinchcliffe strike again...