Covid-19 Update

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady first talked about the importance of border control, and she was right to do so. That is why the Government have already put in place the so-called traffic light system, with this Department working across Government with the Home Office, Border Force, the Department for Transport and others. The system absolutely needs to be kept under review to ensure that it is doing its job in protecting the people of this country from viruses, and especially from any new variants of covid-19 that may emerge. I can give her reassurance on that.

The hon. Lady also raised Test and Trace. She should know that the NHS Test and Trace system is the largest diagnostic exercise of its kind in British history. We have carried out more than 200 million tests, identified more than 4 million positive cases and found more than 7 million of their contacts. Every time that happens, whether in England, Scotland or any part of the United Kingdom, that breaks the chain of transmission and saves lives.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

May I say how delighted I am to see my right hon. Friend back on the Front Bench? I congratulate him on his appointment to this crucial role, and I welcome his approach, as set out in his statement. He will be an excellent Health Secretary.

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that 19 July will mark the end of the road map out of lockdown, that “terminus” means the end of the line, not an interchange, and that it is his intention that all restrictions will be lifted on that date?

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for her kind remarks. As she will have heard in my statement, it is absolutely our intention to have step 4 commence on 19 July and to remove restrictions and start returning to normal. She asked me specifically about all restrictions, or which restrictions. It is certainly our intention to remove restrictions, but as we follow the data in the coming days, we will set out more in due course.

Ockenden Review

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I hope the hon. Lady will not mind my mentioning it, but I know that she is about to become a grandmother herself soon, so I understand the reason for her questioning. She raises a very important point. I know she is aware, because I believe we have had this conversation, that we are focusing on women in the Department at the moment, and of course the mental health of women is a big part of that. The post-natal depression services that have been rolled out across the UK in the past 18 months are a testament to the fact that we are focusing on mental health. I take her point on board, and she has made it before.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I very much thank the Minister for coming to the House so promptly and making this statement, and for her commitment to patient safety. I also pay particular tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) for initiating this very important review. Without that, we would not be here today.

The findings of the report are deeply harrowing. The scale of the deaths and injuries suffered are horrific, but so too was the response of the trust at the time. The report details this. Women at their most vulnerable could not get their voices heard. They were not listened to by those in positions of power, who normalised poor maternity care and also denied its existence. Instead of humility and empathy, what we saw was the harshness of bureaucratic defensiveness, with women at times “blamed for their loss”—that is in the report.

There is now a criminal investigation into this matter, but I would be grateful if the Minister would please ensure that nothing gets in the way of implementing the recommendations as soon as possible, so that families can see real change in maternity care, at this trust and also right across the country.

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my hon. Friend for her pursuance, her persistence and her dedication, both to her constituents and the hospital as a trust. I would also like to mention, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) did, the parents of Kate Stanton-Davies and Pippa Griffiths, who have been instrumental in getting us along the pathway to where we are today. Yes, my right hon. Friend commissioned the report, I pushed for it to happen now, and my hon. Friend has been pushing also, but it is down to those parents and their commitment. It should not have to be like this. Parents should not have to go through what they have gone through to get to where we are today.

As my hon. Friend is aware, I have visited the trust myself and have been round the midwifery unit and the consultant-led unit, and I think there is an anomaly there. Should we have a midwifery unit and a consultants’ unit? Is that not where the problem is, with two separate disciplines not working together? Should there not be just one delivery unit? Does the culture not start there, and should we not look at how it works?

However, my hon. Friend has my absolute 100% assurance that, for as long as I am in this post, I will be driving forward the recommendations and findings of this report.

Covid-19

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), who made useful points as to how we, as a House, may scrutinise and be involved better in some of the decision-making process.

I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this subject today—it is the first such occasion. Let me start by thanking everyone who has worked so hard, not just people on the frontline, but Ministers, to try to grapple with this awful virus. I do not envy them the burden of their responsibilities, and I know they are doing their very best at this difficult time and that not all will go well first time around. They deserve our thanks, from across this House.

It is widely accepted that covid is here for the long term, which means we have to learn to live with it. As the Chancellor said so eloquently last week,

“we must learn to live with it, and live without fear.”—[Official Report, 24 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 1155.]

We know that lockdown is not a cure. The restrictions give us temporary respite, but we are waking up now to the full cost of what that temporary respite means, not just in terms of livelihoods, jobs and people’s futures, but in terms of the suffering and sacrifice that so many have endured, in different ways. Long-term lockdown is not a solution; it is not living with covid. In many ways, it is hiding from covid and simply hoping it will go away. We know that there is much we can do to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our communities. We have seen the measures that shops, schools, pubs and restaurants take to stop the spread, and individually we have learnt to adjust our behaviour.

What we now need is a long-term strategy. It is a long-term problem and we have to approach it from first principles. We need a sense of perspective. The measures we introduce for the whole population need to be proportionate to the risk. Understandably, decision makers felt a sense of panic back in March, but now we know much more about this terrible virus. We know about the groups most affected. We know that the horrifying worst-case-scenario numbers we were given were never realised. so now we can be smarter and more targeted in our quest to prevent avoidable deaths. There is no need to impose indiscriminate, and sometimes arbitrary or capricious, restrictive measures on everyone.

This is a new virus, and the science is young. Unlike the scientists, the Government have to consider wider issues and not just the science. The Government have to consider not only the impact of lockdown on the economy and our health, but the social and moral consequences. They have to grapple with the big-picture issues such as the value of freedom, and to decide whether a covid death matters more than any other preventable death—I say it does not. The Government also have to bring the people with them. We all know which people are most in need of protection and we can understand why they need protection, but it is far less easy to understand why we are locking down students who can be safely exposed to the virus when we do not place similar restrictions on the people most at risk.

We need to understand risk and probability, and that robust, evidence-based data really matters. It is very uncomfortable being frightened to death by scientists presenting charts to the nation that they must know are wrong; that chart last Monday undermined public trust, as it was quite clearly pushing a worst-case scenario without telling us the probability of such a scenario occurring. Was it designed to instil fear in order to control the public? Is that how we want to govern?

Emergency powers were given to the Government when this was an emergency, and that was the right thing to do, but we all accept that we have moved on from there. I urge the Government to understand that we now need to involve Members of Parliament in this process in a different way from that which has happened so far. We may not be experts in science but we are experts in the people we represent. Day in, day out, we are engaging with our constituents, and their needs and concerns, and it is to our constituents that we owe a duty. I ask Ministers to allow MPs to bring that knowledge and expertise to bear, as I genuinely believe it would aid decision making.

I wish to end by thanking every member of this Government who have worked on this in recent months—they have my total admiration. It is not possible to get things right every time, and I applaud them for being so brave in keeping going despite the difficulties and challenges they have experienced. But I ask that they challenge the science with pragmatism and are not blinded by it; science is often as much about opinions as politics is, and we should never disregard the people we were sent here to serve.

Covid-19 Update

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Those are the challenges that we are working so hard to address. The message to the hon. Lady’s constituent and others is that there are thousands of tests available in her part of London, and it is incredibly important that those with symptoms come forward and those without symptoms—[Interruption.] I know that her constituent had symptoms. The critical thing is that all of us have the same message: those with symptoms do come forward, but those without do not. That huge spike in demand is the challenge. It is as simple as that.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

Testing capacity is a finite resource, and it is right to consider prioritising care homes, hospitals and key workers. Will my right hon. Friend ask his Department also to consider the issue of testing very young children, who frequently experience raised temperatures, coughs and colds? Some parents are taking very young children for multiple tests, but those in that age group are unlikely to be out in the community spreading the virus. People want to do the right thing and nobody wants to overwhelm the system, so will he continue to do all he can to ensure that the testing system is operating efficiently?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for that question, which captures the challenges we face. It is absolutely true that children under the age of 16 are very unlikely to get ill with coronavirus; indeed, the proportion of under-16s testing positive is extremely low and is flat, whereas it is rising in many other age groups. She raises a clear point: the prioritisation we have is about getting the tests that we have—record capacity—to the people who need them most. That is why it is an important principle.

Covid-19 Update

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Of course, those who have been on furlough can reapply for furlough, and yesterday the Chief Secretary to the Treasury set out further support that is available for businesses in areas where we have had to intervene. The measures that we have taken in Bolton are strict but absolutely necessary, as I set out on Tuesday. I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s support for those measures and the discussions that we were able to have before they were introduced.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and very much welcome the exciting progress on developing saliva testing. Outstanding progress has already been made on expanding testing capacity, and he deserves our thanks for his tireless work. Inevitably, this is not without its challenges. On Tuesday evening, hundreds of cars from across the country—and I do mean hundreds—descended on Telford’s testing site, as they were directed to do by the booking system. Tests quickly ran out, roads became blocked, people who had travelled from as far away as Cornwall, Stockport and London were turned away, and my constituents were no longer able to access tests in the area and so in turn were sent elsewhere. What assurances can he give that the error in the booking system that directed so many people to Telford has now been corrected, and does he agree that people should not be criss-crossing the country and travelling for many hours to secure a test?

Maternity Services: East Kent

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I must congratulate Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, the chief midwifery officer at NHS Improvement—we are very lucky to have her. Compassion drives her, along with the absolute pursuit of excellent maternity standards. I know that there will be support for those families, and that NHS Improvement will also be reaching out to women who are pregnant and are due to go into the trust.

Let me say this, because I did not mention it in my original response. A number of measures are being taken in relation to the trust, which I probably cannot specify, but a written ministerial statement, which is in the House of Commons Library, gives the full list. I want Members to be reassured that those measures are thorough and robust, and they are working.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her excellent work and I hope that she does indeed continue in her present position.

Tragically, East Kent is not just a one-off; there seems to be a more widespread culture of denial throughout the NHS. We have seen that in the trust in my constituency. The management is saying, “It is historic, it is scare- mongering, it is just a few preventable deaths.” Does the Minister agree that if those in hospital management are to learn lessons, it is essential that that culture of denial is tackled and they recognise their shortcomings so that services improve?

[Ms Dorries]

As my hon. Friend knows, I have been to Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust to reassure myself—line by line—that every recommendation that was made by the Care Quality Commission has been implemented and is working. I thank her for raising this issue, but I also want to emphasise that Shrewsbury and Telford is a safe place for women to give birth, because the same robust approach is being taken there. It is a safe environment, and, as my hon. Friend will know, a new midwife-led unit will be opening shortly.

However, there is a culture that I know concerns the former Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt). In such circumstances, trusts do not feel able to put their arms around parents, to say sorry, to explain to them what has happened, and to show compassion or care. That culture must be broken, and I think that HSIB will go a long way towards contributing to the process.

NHS Funding Bill

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Legislative Grand Committee & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & 3rd reading & Programme motion
Tuesday 4th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I wish to speak to new clause 2, which is tabled in my name and those of my Liberal Democrat colleagues. As you know, Dame Rosie, I intended to push the new clause to a vote, but I understand that time pressures will not allow me to do so. I am disappointed by that, but I will be pressing the Government on this issue time and again. I want them to make it a high priority and to put it at the forefront of their policy making and commitments to the mental health of children and young people.

It is a pleasure to hear such a unified voice across the Committee about the importance of mental health, and there is a clear commitment to parity of esteem and to ensuring that mental health across the board gets the funding it deserves. I am therefore encouraged by the amendments, many of which I and my colleagues will support.

New clause 2 focuses specifically on the crisis—I used that word advisedly—in the provision of child and adolescent mental health services. It places a spotlight on the chronic underfunding of CAMHS, and seeks to encourage the Government and NHS England to deliver on their promises and improve transparency and accountability on those priorities.

Before I arrived in this place, I was aware of this significant and pressing issue. Less than two months since my election, however, I am utterly horrified by the cases of children and young people in crisis that cross my desk on a weekly basis—or more often—either through my surgery, my inbox, or anecdotally when speaking to acquaintances and contacts in my constituency and well beyond. New clause 2 seeks to make the Government and NHS England more accountable for the funding that they provide annually to CAMHS. That is very much in the spirit of the Bill. The Government are seeking to codify their promised expenditure on the NHS, and the new clause seeks simply to do the same thing in this important area, given that a number of welcome commitments have been made about CAMHS spending.

There are concerns that that funding is not reaching the frontline. Indeed, the evidence is clear. Just last week a report by the Children’s Commissioner stated that many CCGs are spending less than 1% of their mental health budget on children and young people. In 2017, the CQC revealed that CCGs have prioritised adult mental health over CAMHS because of the need to ration services. Other amendments seek to talk about mental health more broadly, but that is the reason why we need a particular spotlight on children and young people’s services.

The phrasing of new clause 2 seeks to ensure accountability against the ambitions of the long-term plan. Subsection (2) would help to demonstrate whether the promises on the growth of CAMHS spending outstripping mental health spending, and NHS spending across the board, are kept.

Subsection (3) shines a spotlight on regional variability. The Children’s Commissioner’s report last week talked about the enormous postcode lottery of spending on services. The numbers cited were staggering. In terms of low-level services, they ranged from 72p in some areas to £172 per child. On specialist services, they ranged from £14 to £191. We all expect some level of variation, but I am sure the Government would agree that that level of variation is utterly unacceptable. It needs to be tracked very publicly, so that spending and services can be improved to meet need.

Why is that so critical? As has been stated by various Members, half of all mental health problems are established by the age of 14. We know that 1.25 million children and young people had a mental health disorder in 2017. We have heard that since 2010 there has been an increase of 330% in admissions to A&E of children and young people diagnosed with a psychiatric condition. We know that only one in four children and young people is being seen by a specialist when they need to.

It is very easy to cite statistics, but behind them are individuals: children and young people and their stories. The stories I have heard are of teenagers self-harming, teenagers who are suicidal, teenagers who are a danger to themselves and their families, and young people who are excluded from school or are taking themselves out of school because of their mental health conditions. One piece of correspondence I received from a parent talked about her 17-year-old being referred for specialist treatment last November. He might be assessed, if he is lucky, in March and he will not get treatment for four to six months after that. That cannot be right. This child has at times been suicidal. I have also had a case of a 10-year-old with tier 3 needs waiting a similar amount of time for the initial choice assessment, who will be waiting a similar amount of time again for treatment.

We have had many plans, many vision documents and many strategies setting out wonderful lofty ambitions for the NHS. As I said, the long-term plan has some very laudable commitments on CAMHS. The Bill seeks to put into law what the Government promise on NHS spending. New clause 3 simply seeks to put into law the Government’s promises on spending on children and young people’s mental health disorders. I cannot press new clause 3 to a Division, but I very much hope that the Government will accept the spirit of my new clause and look to see what measures they can put in place to improve transparency and accountability. We owe it to those children and young people, because this really is a crisis and they need us to step up to the plate.

I will end my remarks with a quote from the mother of the 17-year-old I referred to earlier, because she puts it far better than I could:

“All these young people are our future and if we do not help them now, we are looking at a bleak future as these young people will end up being isolated from society, lack skills for work and relationships, find employment hard, perhaps even get into crime and ultimately will end up not having fulfilled lives and maybe end up being yet another statistic. We have not got this right and it is not just about the budgets or party politics; we need all of you to work together on this and treat this as an emergency.”

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

What a pleasure it has been to listen to so many excellent speeches. In particular, I want to say how much I value the contribution of the former Secretary of State for Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt)—I am sure that Ministers will have listened to what he said. I thank everybody who has tabled amendments, which are very thoughtful and well considered. I am particularly grateful for the amendment on patient safety, and again, I am sure that Ministers will have heard what has been said on that issue.

It is a pleasure to speak in a debate where we are not politicising something that matters so much to our constituents and where we are coming together to contribute our experiences, either in our constituencies or professionally. For that reason, I am delighted to be speaking.

I do not support the amendments, however well intentioned, well formulated and well thought out many of them are. However, I would like to speak to the amendment on capital budgets because there are some learning opportunities for the Government in how they spend significant capital investment on hospitals, upgrades and reconfigurations of hospital services. Those upgrades and reconfigurations are indeed happening now, as was set out in the manifesto, but they were also happening before that. My constituency and the county of Shropshire have experienced significant capital investment, but there has been a very difficult, painful and protracted process in trying to bring that forward as something that will benefit the whole community and improve patient care across the county.

I raise that issue because I hope that Ministers will take away from that experience the fact that it is fundamentally wrong to have significant capital investment where local communities are pitched against one another, as has happened in Shropshire. We saw local CCGs propose that Telford should lose all its acute services and be stripped of its A&E and women and children’s services, with them being transferred to another community some 20 miles away that is significantly more affluent and has better health outcomes. In addition, it was intended that that community would also receive £312 million of capital investment in new facilities. I am sure that hon. Members can imagine how that would make our community feel, particularly when it is disadvantaged in many respects. It is a growing new town that will have 200,000 residents in the next 10 years. We have to provide services with equal access for all, because as this Government have said, they are about one thing: levelling up. They are about narrowing health inequalities and ensuring that there is equality of access to health services across our communities. Of course, the NHS has always been about need. Funding in the NHS should follow need.

I will not delay the House too much with further discussion of the situation in my constituency because I believe that my CCGs, after six years of debating this issue, have had another thought about how they might resolve the problem. It will require more Government funding, but they have already made it clear that the proposal that is currently on the table will also require more Government funding. It will provide a fantastic opportunity for us to resolve this situation, which has been ongoing for so long. So, if the Minister is listening to pleas for more capital funding, may I ask that we complete the proposal in Telford, which will be of such value to our community?

There are other learning points that come from the capital investment programme. CCGs and health trusts have a duty—indeed, the Secretary of State has a statutory duty—to narrow health inequalities. We see that across the country where there have been controversial reconfigurations of local hospital trusts and hospital builds. It is not just in Shropshire either; many MPs on both sides of the House have spoken of the need to narrow health inequalities and to ensure that more affluent communities do not benefit at the expense of more disadvantaged ones. This new Government could not tolerate that continuing in areas of disadvantage.

Paterson Inquiry

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I am totally with the hon. Lady, and as a nurse myself, I know that that happens with senior nurses, not only senior doctors, because there is the same culture of fear, and of not wanting to challenge a superior who is more experienced in what they are doing. Such a change cannot happen overnight. It will take time, but I think it is already happening as a result of increased confidence. We have recently had a few inquiries, and I think patients now have more confidence to speak out. Under the national guardians scheme, whistleblowers have more confidence to speak out. I think that cultural change is happening, and last week I visited a hospital where I saw that in process.

Our job is to ensure that we introduce whatever needs to be put in place. No one is God. When I trained as a nurse, doctors were like God, but that is not true; that is not the case. This has been a long road, and we need to challenge that culture even further. Those who have been practising for some time are esteemed, and we value their experience. We value those people, but we must also break the culture that means they are not to be challenged. Making the revalidation and appraisal system more robust is one way to do that.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her heartfelt apology for what has happened, and for her commitment to patient safety. Does she agree that there are clear commonalities between this case and other tragedies, such as those at Morecambe Bay and Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust? As the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) said, there is an imbalance of power between male consultants, and in this case female patients, who often just accept what they are told by a more powerful figure.

[Ms Dorries]

This day is about the victims of Paterson and the women he treated, and I do not want to detract from that by going down another road and talking about another inquiry. My hon. Friend is right: often women are those most affected by these issues, which is why I spoke about the importance of consent. We as a Department must consider how such consent is gained, and I think the Cumberlege report, which we are expecting to come to Parliament soon, will help with that.

Ockenden Review of Maternity Care: Shrewsbury and Telford

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I am delighted to have been granted this Adjournment debate on this very important issue. I want to raise it because the issue deserves the platform that Parliament affords. It concerns the safety of women and babies receiving maternity care at hospitals in Shropshire. I raise that in the context of the Morecambe Bay trust inquiry into maternity deaths in 2015, which at the time was considered to be a one-off. What has come to light at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust suggests that there may be systemic problems within the NHS and maternity care, and there are without doubt significant concerns about the lack of transparency and openness around what went wrong.

The Ockenden review was set up two and half years ago to look at 23 possible cases of maternity malpractice at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust. So far there have been no formal published findings. However, in November 2019 interim findings were leaked to the media. Those findings show not only that had some very serious failings indeed been uncovered by the review, but that the scale of the malpractice, and the number of women and babies affected by it, exceeded anything that had been expected when the review was initiated.

The interim findings stated that there had been in excess of 40 avoidable maternity deaths and 50 brain-injured babies. NHS Improvement was given that information almost a year ago and appears to have kept quiet about the findings. The findings also make reference to “widespread failings, a toxic culture and a failure to learn lessons.” Since those findings were made public, many, many more women have come forward—women who knew nothing about a review being held. The review is now looking at over 600 cases of possible maternity care malpractice.

Those interim findings directly contradict what senior management were saying publicly at the time when the review was commissioned. Senior management claimed that this was all overblown by the media, that it was all historical, and that good practice was in place now. The chief executive claimed that concerns raised about the possible scale of malpractice were “scaremongering”—his word. Senior hospital management adopted the stance that “it simply couldn’t happen here.” The CEO said that the media, particularly the BBC, had it in for them; that is what they actually said to me, the MP. How, in that kind of environment, can lessons be learned if there is no acceptance that anything has gone wrong?

We had the same response from the authorities in Telford when the scale of child sexual exploitation in the town was revealed. That denial, or perhaps being in denial, seems to be the standard response from those in positions of authority—minimising the problem, blaming the media and depicting those affected as being in some way troublesome.

Let us compare the review from Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust with that from Morecambe Bay, where there were 11 avoidable baby deaths and one maternal death. The Morecambe Bay inquiry reported promptly, and the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), came immediately to the House, made a statement, and apologised to the families. He pledged that lessons would be learned, and that the legacy of those tragic deaths would mean that such things could not happen again. My right hon. Friend is in the Chamber today, and I am grateful that he did not just accept the position taken by senior management, NHS bureaucrats, and officials from Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Hospital Trust at face value. I commend him for initiating the Ockenden review, and for his commitment to encouraging a culture of transparency and openness across the NHS. We must continue with that approach.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

I wish to repay the compliment and thank my hon. Friend for her tireless campaigning on this issue. It is not easy publicly to criticise a local hospital trust, and for an hon. Member to do that, as in this case, shows enormous courage. Does she agree that the biggest mistake the Government could make when they publish and respond to the Ockenden review would be to say that this is a one-off incident? The most important thing is to consider what went wrong at Shrewsbury and Telford, and to learn those lessons for the whole NHS. The big thing that we learned from Morecambe Bay and Mid Staffs was that such lessons apply across the system.

[Lucy Allan]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point—I was going to come to it in my speech, so I will bring it in now. The Morecambe Bay inquiry was led by Dr Bill Kirkup, who said of the recent findings at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust that

“two clinical organisational failures are not two one offs”,

and that that points to an “underlying systemic problem” that may exist in other hospitals. My right hon. Friend is right to make that point, and I thank him for his kind comments.

The interim findings in the Ockenden review were not published, and I understand that the hospital trust has not been told about them. The families were certainly not told about them, and neither were MPs. There has been no statement to the House, and we do not know what action is being taken to ensure the safety of women and babies at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am an avid watcher of that Sunday night programme, “Call the Midwife”—I am not sure whether you watch it, Mr Speaker—where everything seems to work out at the end of the day. The hon. Lady is outlining something that does not work out at the end of the day. She mentioned families. Does she agree that the care of mother and baby must be a priority, and that more support for mothers who have had several children must be considered, to ensure that they are coping and not expected simply to carry on because they already know what to expect? Every life is precious and adds more pressures to families, particularly mothers.

[Lucy Allan]

I very much appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. As always, he makes an excellent point, and I am grateful to him for his many interventions in many debates I have secured.

I am concerned that the NHS can choose to sit on this information, and that Ministers can say, “Well, we don’t comment on leaks”. This is about the safety of women and babies, and the adequacy of the maternity care they receive in our hospitals today. Women were repeatedly told that their case was a one-off tragedy, that there will always be risks to childbirth, and that such risks cannot be completely mitigated. Failings seem somehow to have been normalised, and at the time many women accepted that, rather than question or challenge the care they received. People trust the medical profession, which is why openness and transparency are so crucial.

When people raised concerns they were dismissed as being difficult—no one listened. There was a “we know best” attitude, and complaints about poor practice were treated as women making a fuss about a perfectly natural event that occasionally would have a negative outcome. As Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend spoke about “never events”, and I suggest that those must include an avoidable death. A baby dying in childbirth should therefore be a “never event”, yet it seems that that is not the way the deaths in this case were treated—they were treated as something that could be a result of childbirth. The trust even boasted of having the lowest number of caesarean deliveries in the country, so there seems to have been an unwillingness to intervene when there were complications in a delivery. In my view, an intervention during a difficult birth must be a good thing: that is what the clinicians and medical professionals are there to do. I am concerned about the way this trust appears to have treated women and about its attitude towards women, which seems to have been dismissive. And that is something we have seen from the top.

What adds insult to injury in this particular case is that the trust commissioned a report in 2013 that appeared to find that all was well. We now know, because of the leaked report, that that was in fact a whitewash. The trust was exonerated by what was a perfunctory bare minimum desk-top review. This allowed poor practice to continue unchecked. If it had been identified at the time, the more recent cases of malpractice, which are still coming forward and include death and injury, could have been avoided. We still do not know how many women and babies have been affected, but we do know that £50 million in compensation has been paid out already. However, with hundreds more women coming forward, the cases in which a financial settlement has already been reached are clearly the tip of the iceberg.

The question we have to ask, and must go on asking, is whether that poor care, and the normalisation and denial of it, is a systemic problem within the complex bureaucracy that is the NHS.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Lucy Allan]

I shall be delighted to give way to my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour.

[Mr Paterson]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this very, very difficult subject forward. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) for launching the Ockenden review. It is very easy to talk about numbers, but every one of these cases is unutterably terrible and ghastly for the family concerned, and obviously a total tragedy. We all know dreadful stories from the past. The latest figures show that the infant mortality rate at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust is 3.7 per 1,000, against a national average of 3.9 and a national target, which I would like the Minister to comment on, of 2.6 by 2025. My hon. Friend has rightly raised the absolute horrors and the dreadful culture—we all know terrible stories—but does she derive any satisfaction from the fact that we are marginally better than the national average at the moment and possibly heading towards the national target by 2025?

[Lucy Allan]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. Clearly, the majority of women using these services have an excellent and safe experience. It is good news that there is progress and improvement, but we should not gloss over any of these cases. Regrettably, there have been new, recent cases in my constituency where women have come forward, having been made aware of the review, saying, “This happened to me a couple of years ago.” It is good that the numbers are improving, but we must make sure that every one of those deaths is treated as another event.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

rose—

[Lucy Allan]

I shall be glad to give way to my other constituency neighbour.

[Philip Dunne]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. I completely agree with my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), that she is making a powerful case. It is quite right that she has brought this issue forward. On the subject of current practice versus some of the cases that are being considered in the Ockenden review, which stretches back 40 years, she will remember that it was initiated by the case of a couple who were constituents of mine. They lost their baby in 2009, over 10 years ago. Their concern was that, as my hon. Friend rightly identifies, the case had been inadequately handled and effectively covered up by the hospital.

One of my concerns, in addition to getting to the bottom of what has happened over a long period of time, is that we need to be reassured, as local Members of Parliament serving our constituents today, that the maternity services available to people in Shropshire are safe and of high quality. It would be helpful if in some way, given the scale of the inquiry that Ockenden is undertaking, there could be some interim finding on the current state of practice in Shropshire and Telford, so that at least expectant mums who are going to use those services can feel reassured. That would not prevent a more detailed inquiry going back into past practice. Does she agree with me on that point?

[Lucy Allan]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That might be something that the Minister can address, because we want users of maternity services to have absolute confidence in the care that they receive. However, we do not create confidence by hiding facts. If we can get some of the facts out that have been leaked to the media, let us do that and deal with those. He is absolutely right that that will help to reassure parents and give them confidence in the services that are being delivered—the vast majority receive a very good standard of care, and safe care.

The trust, and possibly other trusts, must work towards a culture of openness and transparency and perhaps show more of a willingness to accept that, “This can happen here.” I kept hearing, “Well, this can’t happen here. It hasn’t happened here,” and I cannot feel comfortable if people cannot acknowledge where things have gone wrong.

I recognise that the Minister may not have all the answers today, and I do not expect all the points to be addressed, but we need to know why NHS Improvement sat on the review’s findings for almost a year. Given how serious they are, why has it not come forward to say, “This is what the Ockenden review has found at an interim stage”?

I want to ask who knew what and when. Were Ministers informed, or were they too kept in the dark? If this had not been leaked, when would we have been told? When will the review be completed? It has now been almost three years. When will the Secretary of State make a statement on this very, very serious issue? I also want to know whether the management still think that this has been cooked up by the media, or whether they genuinely now realise that there is a serious problem to be addressed. It is very important that the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS bodies understand and acknowledge the seriousness, and that all parties are encouraged to be open about it.

As a constituency MP who has had women contact me recently to share their birth experiences at the trust, it seems to me that red lights are flashing. We need to know what is being done to ensure the safety of women and their babies using this service. I very much thank the Minister for her forthcoming comments and any reassurances that she can give my constituents on this issue.