The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
I thank the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) for raising this extremely serious matter very powerfully on behalf of his constituent Elizabeth, following the tragic loss of her son Jack. Our thoughts are with her and the rest of the family. We Members of Parliament find ourselves dealing with tragedies, but we are able to give our constituents a voice, and that is a great honour—a sad one, but one we take very seriously. I commit to working with the right hon. Gentleman as we move forward.
As the right hon. Gentleman said, the General Medical Council is there first and foremost to protect patients and maintain public confidence in the medical profession. It is the regulator of all medical doctors, anaesthesia associates and physician associates practising in the United Kingdom. It defines standards for ethics, competence and patient safety, and it has a duty to investigate concerns about doctors’ performance or conduct.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Verita review, so let me start there. In January last year, Cambridge University hospitals trust commissioned Verita, an objective investigations company, to undertake a review of the hospital’s governance. Meanwhile, the Kennedy report into the missed opportunities surrounding Dr Stohr’s case is still ongoing. Verita’s report was published in October 2025 and made 23 recommendations. The broad themes that emerged from that investigation were: first, that doctors needed more oversight, clinical supervision and performance management; secondly, improving safety governance through better board-level visibility and escalation pathways; thirdly, proper oversight of clinical reviews, and ensuring that they are acted on promptly, and that changes are made; and finally, a change in medical culture and behaviour, so that staff feel empowered to hold their hands up when things go wrong. The trust has accepted the findings, published an action plan and apologised to affected families, as I understand it. We expect the hospital to implement the findings of the review in full, because Jack Moate’s family deserve absolute transparency from the authorities, and they have the right to know that lessons will be learned when things go wrong.
The right hon. Gentleman wrote to the Department on 15 May, and his letter makes it very clear that this is one of the worst and most distressing cases that he, in his long experience, has ever encountered. Having read that letter, I agree with him, and I know he does not use those words lightly. I can confirm that the GMC has now done the right thing and launched an investigation into the conduct of Kuldeep Stohr.
The GMC is an independent body, and I cannot go into all the specifics of an individual case, as the right hon. Gentleman will know from his time as Health Secretary. It would be wrong for me to give any further commentary on a live investigation, not least because that could prejudice the outcome and be a barrier to Jack’s family getting justice. Suffice it to say that I am just as appalled as the right hon. Gentleman is that this has gone on for so long.
It has taken almost a decade of missed opportunities for the families to start getting the answers they deserve. I understand that the former Minister for patient safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), met some of the families in November. He also intended to go to Cambridge to meet families and representatives of the trust. Today I can confirm that the new Minister for patient safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), is willing to meet the right hon. Gentleman and the Moate family to discuss the shocking circumstances of their case. I hope that they can take some comfort from knowing that although my hon. Friend is new in post, she takes these issues very seriously, she has been a champion for her own constituents who faced patient safety failures in her local trust, and she will be following this case very closely indeed.
It may be helpful for me to outline the broader principles that govern the GMC and its regulatory framework. When an allegation is made about a doctor, the GMC has a duty to investigate and, where necessary, take action to safeguard the health and wellbeing of the public. In serious cases, it can refer a doctor to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service. These procedures can result in doctors being removed from the medical register. That strips away their right to legally practice medicine in this country. The MPTS is a statutory committee of the GMC. It operates separately and independently, which is crucial to maintaining public confidence in its findings. The tribunals have a legal duty to protect the public, and we have clear expectations of them.
This year, we are taking action to modernise the regulation of all healthcare professionals in the UK. In March, we published a consultation on reforming the General Medical Council legislative framework. The reforms would make the process for assessing a doctor’s fitness to practice swifter and fairer, and, as we have heard, the consultation runs until 23 June. The right hon. Gentleman tempts me to consider making amendments to the Health Bill. Given his experience, he will understand that I will not commit to doing that, but I can commit to discussing the matter further, and I encourage him and others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), who raised the shocking al-Fayed case, to engage with that consultation. We will consider the outcomes of that consultation before we bring legislation to the House, but we expect to lay the General Medical Council order before Parliament later this year, subject to those conversations. I am happy to ensure that the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield have any further meetings that are necessary with me or with officials, given the tight deadlines that will have to be met under that timetable.
I will touch on the Mann review, which the right hon. Gentleman also highlighted. As we all know, the NHS was founded on the principle of treating everyone equally and with respect. We have been crystal clear that racism and discrimination betray everything the NHS stands for and its ability to provide safe, world-class care. That is why the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), asked the noble Lord Mann to conduct a review into antisemitism and other forms of racism in the NHS. As the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire said, this morning Lord Mann published a series of robust and practical recommendations, and we support every one of them.
The right hon. Gentleman read out some shocking stories from his time as Health Secretary. I cannot comment on them now, but I assure him and other hon. Members that in the weeks and months ahead, we will work with all organisations that have been named in the review, including the GMC, to ensure partners across the system are supported in delivering meaningful change based on the recommendations. I know that the GMC is as committed to rooting out racism from its ranks as we are, and we will leave no stone unturned to get this done.
Trust is the glue that holds our institutions together. The public have an absolute right to know that they can trust their doctor, and when things do go wrong, they have a right to swift and transparent justice. I cannot begin to imagine what Jack’s family, and especially his poor mum, are going through. I thank them for their consideration in discussing this with us, and I know that there are many other families involved. The system that we build has to do right by families like theirs. I commit to working further with the right hon. Gentleman and others in this place to do just that.
Question put and agreed to.