NHS: Shared Business Services

Lord Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

Clearly, if there were such an incidence, the noble Lord is quite right that it would be dealt with very strongly—but it is important to point out that there has not been evidence that that has happened. Documents were destroyed that sat within SBS, but they were not part of the backlog and they conformed, as we understand it, to the protocols around destroying old papers when they have gone past a certain time limit. So there is no evidence that what the noble Lord described has happened in this instance—but, as he points out, if it had happened it would be of the utmost seriousness.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, what is the governance mechanism of this joint private venture? Considering that one of the key tasks is to deliver letters and patient reports in a timely manner to GPs’ surgeries, what risk assessment was made during the process of the work?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

Yes, this specific case was a joint venture between a private company and the Department of Health, which has a share and director places on the board. The department had a director on the board of this joint venture throughout. Part of the problem was that the issue of this unacceptable practice was not brought to the attention of the board until far too late in the process. That is obvious from the timeline that has been set out. The particular issue about redirection is no longer the case. Mail is now returned to sender if it is not delivered, rather than creating opportunities for the things going wrong that happened through this redirection service.