Special Measures Regime

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Such reports will be used. Members of the public will be involved in the inspection regime and the way that care homes respond to complaints and concerns raised by families will be an important part of what the new chief inspector looks at.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

We all hope that the special measures regime speeds up the improvements that are needed in Morecambe Bay hospitals, but does the Secretary of State accept that the turmoil that those hospitals have been in for years now will never properly end until the Government recognise that the trust simply cannot deliver services with the same level of funding, given the almost unique challenges of rural isolation, severe deprivation and health need in the area?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the work he has done with James Titcombe on the tragedy that happened at Morecambe Bay. I think there are particular issues in that trust owing to the fact that it is on two sites that take a long time to travel between geographically. The point of the new regime is to ensure that those issues get surfaced and that Ministers and the system have to address them. I hope that that is what will happen.