Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

17. What progress he is making on the dissemination of best practice throughout the NHS.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

Mr Speaker, I share your ambition in reaching Question 17 to be able to say that the long-term plan for the NHS sets out ambitious goals to embed a culture of quality improvement of which my right hon. Friend would be proud.

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for getting this far down the list of questions. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has a serious ambition to try to drive this plan forward, but it is unacceptable that best practice is not better disseminated throughout the NHS. It is completely unacceptable that there are such wide divergences in standards between hospitals, and it requires the everyday attention of the Secretary of State himself to drive this change through.

[Matt Hancock]

I agree entirely and enthusiastically with my right hon. Friend. The need to improve services in the NHS just to bring them up to the best that is in the NHS is vital and urgent. We can lift the quality of care that all our constituents get simply by learning from the best. We have schemes such as the “getting it right first time” programme, which is brilliant at teaching hospitals how to do things the way the best hospitals do them, and we want to see more.

NHS Long-term Plan

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and Matt Hancock

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

When I answered a previous question on the timing of the social care Green Paper, I said it would be provided “soon.” I certainly intend that to happen before April. My previous commitment was to do it before Christmas, so it is well advanced. But the hon. Lady is right on the legislative proposals. There is a broad consensus on the need for more integration, as my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee said. The proposals that are made by the NHS in the paper are what it thinks is needed in order to deliver this integration, which I very strongly support.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

No doubt my right hon. Friend is gratified, as would be the Churchill-led National Government of 1944, by how truly remarkable and amazing the national health service, the baby of that Government, has turned out to be. Will he assure me that this money does not come without strings and that he will enforce a much better system of lessons learned and, in particular, of disseminating best practice more widely through the NHS? Finally, will he please kick the work of the sustainability and transformation partnerships into some form of prompt result?

[Matt Hancock]

When I referenced Churchill, I did not realise that it would be in front of his family. My right hon. Friend is quite right about the need for a just culture—a need for understanding the lessons that are learned when things go wrong—in what is a high-risk business of providing medicine and medical care. Those lessons should be properly learned and there should be transparency and openness and a culture of constantly improving the way that things are done, whether that is medically, logistically or organisationally in hospitals. That is a critical part of the review that Baroness Dido Harding will take forward. It is something that she cares deeply about, making sure that we get the culture right within the workforce not only to tackle the high levels of bullying and harassment, which are completely unacceptable in the national health service, but to make sure that there is a spirit and a culture of continuous improvement and of learning from errors that everyone makes. All of us make errors, and we should learn from them and that culture should be inculcated right across the NHS.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

T7. What is it, precisely, about the NHS’s management and leadership that means it seems to be unable to achieve consistent excellence in its hospitals, such as happens at the Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust? Why is it so hard for lessons learned to be better disseminated?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend identifies a critical factor in improving the future of the NHS, which is to have stronger leadership at all levels, to be able to support innovation and to find out the best that is happening elsewhere and bring it to trusts. I know he has a particular interest in that, and I look forward to working with him on it.