Professor Keith Willett is today taking part in a live online debate about seven day services.

The question and answer session will take place on the HSJ’s website and is part of its on-going coverage of the seven day services debate. It recently ran an online “conversation” about 24/7 care and received more than 6,000 comments from around 1,200 people.

Professor Willett, who is NHS England’s National Director for Acute Episodes of Care and also leading Bruce Keogh’s Urgent and Emergency care Review, will be answering questions between 1pm and 2pm.

He will be joined on the seven day services panel by: Dr Johnny Marshall, director of policy, NHS Confederation; Dr Steve Kell, chair of Bassetlaw Clinical Commissioning Group; Mike Pinkerton, chief executive of Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals Foundation Trust; Tom Gentry, Age UK’s policy adviser;  Alex Velkov, director, Clever Together; Dr Mark Temple, acute care fellow, Royal College of Physicians.

HSJ have invited regular readers and the puublic to post their questions to the panellists ahead of the discussion. To keep things moving, panellists have also been given a list of pre-prepared questions that are likely to include:

• Question to NHS England and NHS Confederation – How do we address the additional staff costs of providing 24/7 care and how do we go about addressing the workforce gap?
• Question for Bassetlaw CCG and Bassetlaw hospital: How did you manage to balance the investment costs required and also achieve efficiency savings in the move towards 24/7 working at Bassetlaw hospital?
• Question to NHS Confederation, NHS Employers and Unison – How do we minimise the impact of 24/7 working on staff hours. Are there ways to configure working contracts so that the number of days worked stays the same but the way in which staff work changes?
• Question to NHS England – How do we link changes to seven day working to patient outcome in order to engage staff on the benefits of these changes?
• Question to NHS England – How do we better promote the pockets of 24/7 care that are available and ease A&E pressure?
• Question to Age UK – What role can volunteers play in delivering 24/7 care?
• Question to all on the panel – How do we ensure any changes to 24/7 care is mirrored within social care, what steps can be taken?
• Question for NHS Employers – contract negotiations with junior doctors and consultants are to start soon, what can we expect around seven day working?

To watch and raise questions, register here and then watch the debate at 1pm.

• See here for more information on seven days services pages