Care Quality Commission (Morecambe Bay Hospitals)

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

That is the big culture change we need to see; we need to see Governments who are prepared, in all circumstances, however difficult and however politically inconvenient it is, to recognise that when there are safety issues, when there are terrible failures in care and compassion, we need to support the people who want to speak up, because if we do not do that, we will never root out these problems.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I support the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). A real concern is being expressed by Members on both sides of the House, because a person committed this cover-up by deleting this report and we really want to know—there should be an investigation—whether they are currently working for the CQC or working in the NHS anywhere. It is vital to know that.

Today, the CQC’s chair has said that it is not currently capable of carrying out hospital inspections. The Health Secretary has talked about putting in place more specialist inspection teams, and I, of course, support that. However, CQC inspectors have had access to specialists for a long time—they have talked about it before the Health Committee—so if they are not using them, that is an issue to address. What measures will the Health Secretary put in place to ensure that from this day onwards—not at some future point—we can have the CQC competently carrying out inspections?

[Mr Hunt]

When the CQC was set up in 2009, it was decided, with full ministerial approval, to go for a generalist inspection model—a model where inspection was not carried out by specialists; the same people would inspect dental clinics, GP practices, hospitals and slimming clinics. That was the wrong decision to take. Making sure that we have enough specialist inspectors in place, with appropriate clinical expertise, takes time—it is a very big recruitment job—and that is what the new chief inspector of hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, is now setting about doing. It is also expensive—it costs money—but he has said to me that when his teams are in place he will start those inspections before the end of this year. So we are going as fast as we possibly can to try to put these problems right.