Savile Investigations: NHS

Thursday 26th November 2015 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

I am today publishing an update on the Government’s response to the recommendations set out in Kate Lampard’s report on the themes and lessons learnt from NHS investigations into matters relating to Jimmy Savile. A copy of the update report can be found online.

On 26 February 2015, Official Report, columns 483-486, I advised the House that the Government accepted in principle 13 of the 14 recommendations in Kate Lampard’s excellent report, including on access, volunteering, safeguarding, complaints and governance. I also asked the chief executives of Monitor and the Trust Development Authority, now brought together in NHS Improvement, to ensure that all trusts review their current practice against the recommendations within three months, and then to write back to me with a summary of plans and progress.

The update report published today provides a summary of actions taken in response to the 13 recommendations for the NHS, Department of Health and wider Government. All NHS trusts and foundation trusts have responded and those responses have been collated by Monitor and TDA, now NHS Improvement.

In summary, progress has been made against all the accepted recommendations. The vast majority of trusts have already taken action in response to the recommendations or are in the process of doing so. For individual recommendations, at least 80% of providers planned to have implemented them by September 2015, with the remainder due to complete their action by the end of the year.

It is vital that trusts continue to be vigilant against the dangers of child sex abuse. NHS Improvement are currently reviewing CQC’s well-led framework and how it applies to trusts, setting out expectations of NHS provider boards and their oversight of the organisations they are responsible for. Well-run boards should be able to assure themselves that their organisations have processes in place to ensure effective safeguarding, training and recruitment practices. NHS Improvement will consider how best to reflect the recommendations in this framework in an appropriate fashion.

Attachments can be viewed online at:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2015-11-26/HCWS330/

[HCWS330]