Special Measures Regime

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am afraid that that is the difference between Government and Opposition Members. The hon. Lady says that there was denial over Jimmy Savile, but I stood at this Dispatch Box and apologised to relatives and members of the public for the mistakes relating to Jimmy Savile. I do not call that denial; I call it facing up to the past.

Of course, inspection is not the only answer, but the reason it was so wrong to abolish the expert-led inspections we used to have in social care is that the first step, if we are trying to improve standards, is at least to know where the problems are. Until we have those expert-led inspections, we will not know that. The next step is to work out how to solve the problems. We will be doing both.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

The Queen Elizabeth hospital in King’s Lynn serves my constituency and that of the Secretary of State’s deputy, the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). Will the Secretary of State pay tribute to the superb acting chief executive, Manjit Obhrai, and the former acting chairman, David Dean, who have done a sterling job, along with the hard-working staff, on the hospital’s comprehensive improvement plan? When will that hospital come out of special measures, and will he pay tribute to the excellent work that has been done in the past few months?

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to do so. The hospital has recruited 95 more nurses and nursing support staff since last July. It has appointed a director of nursing and a medical director and lead for patient safety, which strengthens clinical leadership. Some very important changes have been made, and I pay tribute to the hospital’s leadership for making that possible. I hope my hon. Friend understands that, under the new system we have set up, it is not for the Secretary of State or any Minister to say when a trust is ready to come out of special measures. We have deliberately given that judgment to an independent chief inspector, so that no one who has a vested interest or a hope that a hospital will come out of special measures, and no one who is involved in turning around a trust, is responsible for that important independent judgment. However, that means that, when hospitals come out of special measures, people can have confidence that the judgment has been correctly made.