Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

One of the problems at the moment is that we do not have a good way of identifying other hospitals. The hospital inspection regime will start this year. That will obviously be the start, but prior to that we are conducting an investigation into 14 hospitals with higher than average mortality rates. That is one indicator: it might not mean there is a problem, but it is something we think is worth checking out.

Finally, let me say that my hon. Friend has an extremely good record on improving standards in education by understanding the importance of rigour. That is something we can learn from in the inspection regime for hospitals.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend ensure that any revised patient care ratings include an enhanced emphasis on the degree to which things are explained clearly to patients and relatives and how relatives are kept informed?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is absolutely essential that the new chief inspector’s team talks to patients and relatives to get that feedback. One of the biggest changes from what we have now to what we will have is the element of judgment in the assessments made. We will not just be looking at the data, the dials or the numbers; there will be someone going to a hospital, smelling the coffee, understanding the culture of the place and talking to patients and relatives.

Immigrants (NHS Treatment)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I would want to be careful to discriminate between the needs of British citizens and people who are entitled to free NHS care who have not had the education or support they need to learn English but who should still continue to receive free, high quality NHS care, and foreign nationals who are not entitled to free NHS care and who should pay the cost of any translation required.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My constituents are absolutely furious that non-entitled foreign nationals are effectively getting free access to our NHS, and I welcome the steps my right hon. Friend is making to tackle this issue. Will he ensure that Her Majesty’s Government fast-track legislation, with an announcement in the Queen’s Speech, and challenge the Opposition either to bring down or pass that legislation in the next parliamentary year?

[Mr Hunt]

I have visited Kettering hospital, and I know just how hard its front-line professionals work and the pressures they are under. All I can say to my hon. Friend is that the Leader of the House of Commons is sitting here and has heard what he has said, and I would certainly support the early introduction of legislation on this matter.

Alexandra Hospital, Redditch

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

It is not compulsory, when a Member has a debate on their local hospital, for them to attend on crutches, but I am delighted that the hon. Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) has arrived.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karen Lumley]

Those who know the Worcestershire MPs know that we generally hunt as a pack; we are renowned within different Departments for doing so. I share my hon. Friend’s concerns, but obviously at the end of the day I am the MP for Redditch, my hospital is the one under threat and I must do what is best for my constituents.

There are several questions I want to ask the Minister today. First, who owns the Alexandra hospital? Secondly, if the local commissioning group wants to commission services with University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, will his Department help to make that happen? Thirdly, does he agree that this uncertainty has gone on long enough, and will he encourage the Worcestershire acute trust to co-operate with the UHB trust in Birmingham? Fourthly, will he reassure staff and my constituents that he and his Department are working as hard as they can to ensure the best outcome for them?

I have probably said enough now, but I will finish by saying that we are grateful to the Minister for his attention to our hospital in Redditch. We look forward to welcoming him in April to see for himself what a fantastic hospital we have—a hospital that we must not forget belongs to the residents of Redditch. We are realistic about what has to happen, but I want to put on the record today that there are two options on the table, and it is only fair to my constituents that both be looked at in a fair and open way. That is all we are asking for, and I hope that he and his Department will ensure that it happens.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

In this debate, we have not only an out-patient but a doctor. I call Dr Daniel Poulter, the Minister.

Social Care Funding

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We have looked very carefully at the cuts that local authorities are facing in England in order to make sure that that should not compromise adult social care. They are not ring-fenced budgets. That is why we put in an extra £7.2 billion of support from the Department of Health’s budget where there are health-related needs. We are watching this very carefully throughout the country.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

People in my constituency will want to congratulate the Secretary of State on grasping this nettle. Can he confirm that after 2017 there will be some kind of index-linking on the liability cap and the asset threshold? Is there now an implied permanent link between the yield from inheritance tax and the nation’s social care costs?

[Mr Hunt]

I do not think that there is an implied link in the way that my hon. Friend suggests, but I will reflect on his comment to check that I fully understood his brilliant insight. Automatic indexation is of course a matter for future Governments and future Parliaments, but it is certainly our intention that the proposals we are making will continue to take account of changes in the cost of living.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

It will be very easy to look at the number of lives saved. We will be able to see the impact of the fund, because it only started in 2010.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Kettering has the sixth fastest household growth rate in England, and accident and emergency admissions to Kettering general hospital are now at 12% year on year. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the NHS funding formula reflects the very latest population estimates?

[Mr Hunt]

NHS funds are independently decided by the NHS Commissioning Board, and I know that is a key concern of the board. I visited Kettering hospital, so I know that it is a very busy hospital coping well in difficult circumstances.

NHS Commissioning Board (Mandate)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The mandate makes it clear that waiting times targets must be met. That is a very important part of the mandate. I continue to be extremely concerned by what the hon. Gentleman tells me about what is happening in his constituency, and I look to his local NHS to come up with a sustainable, rapid solution.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

As the Secretary of State saw for himself when he visited Kettering general hospital recently, the NHS is very good at treating people but perhaps is not quite as good at preventing people from getting ill. Given that prevention is better than cure and often less expensive, what is there in this mandate that will encourage up-front health care before patients are admitted to hospital?

[Mr Hunt]

There is something critically important in the mandate that will do that, which is that by making the NHS operationally independent we are giving commissioning responsibilities to local GP-led groups for the first time, and GPs understand the importance not just of primary care but of prevention. So I think we will see much more innovation, along with the co-operation that the NHS has with local authorities and the new health and wellbeing boards, to make sure that there is a much bigger focus on prevention than there has been in the past.

Kettering General Hospital

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Friday 9th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I thank Mr Speaker, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for granting me the privilege of holding this debate, and I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) to his place. May I also take this opportunity to thank, on behalf of local residents throughout the borough of Kettering, all those who work at Kettering general hospital, whether they be nurses, doctors, consultants or ancillary staff, for all the work they do on behalf of local people. It is hugely appreciated. Many people at Kettering general hospital have worked there for a very long time—20, 30 or, in some instances, 40 years. The hospital is very much embedded at the heart of the local community.

I thank Lorene Read, the chief executive, and Steve Hone, the chairman of the trust, for all the work that they have put into the hospital and for the time they have given me over recent weeks to talk about the hospital’s future. I also thank Councillor Russell Roberts, the leader of Kettering borough council, for his close involvement in trying to sort out the hospital’s future.

It is my privilege to have been elected to serve as the Member of Parliament for Kettering, to stand up and speak out on behalf of local people about issues important to them. There is probably nothing more important to local people than the future of our much loved and badly needed local hospital in Kettering.

The nub of the points that I want to make is that local people simply will not put up with any prospect whatsoever of any downgrade to the accident and emergency facilities or the maternity wing at Kettering general hospital. Those are two highly valued, much prized departments and whoever plans the future of the hospital simply must not downgrade those two vital facilities, because they do a fantastic job in very difficult circumstances.

Kettering is growing extremely rapidly. Over the past decade, the borough of Kettering was sixth out of 348 districts throughout the country in the rapidity of household growth, and 31st in population growth. Few other parts of the country are growing as fast as Kettering. We have always needed our hospital and we now need it more badly than ever.

On public sector transport, the connections between Kettering and the rest of Northamptonshire, let alone the rest of the country, especially to the other acute hospital sites in the south-east midlands, are not good. The road between Kettering and Northampton, the A43, is the most dangerous and most congested in Northamptonshire. The idea that facilities could simply be moved out of Kettering and down the road to Northampton does not work for the staff or patients at the hospital. I say to the Minister that because of the demographics, the increasing age of the population, the rate of population growth, the geography of Northamptonshire and the crucial need for, but lack of, available future capital investment, any rearrangement of acute service provision by the NHS in the south-east midlands must not involve any downgrading of the A and E and maternity departments at Kettering.

The Minister needs to be aware that Kettering general hospital is much loved and badly needed. It has been in existence for 115 years. Local people have been born there, have seen their relatives treated there and have died there. Everyone in Kettering has, at one point or another, been through that hospital. It is a hospital embedded in the local community like few others.

As of today, Kettering general hospital employs 3,100 staff. It has more than 600 in-patient and day-case beds, 17 operating theatres, seven intensive treatment unit beds and three high-dependency unit beds. The obstetric unit delivers about 3,800 babies a year and is where my two children were delivered some years ago. The midwifery department is growing at a rate of between 5% and 7% a year. It includes a neonatal intensive care unit for babies, which is a sort of special care baby unit-plus. There is also a new £30 million treatment centre with enhanced paediatric facilities, which is opening next year.

Kettering general hospital has a level 2 trauma unit in its 24/7 A and E department, which is consultant-led. It currently has five consultants and two locums. Consultants are on site until 11 o’clock in the evening and are on call until 8 o’clock in the morning. Some 3,200 orthopaedic patients—people with hip and knee problems—go through the hospital every year, as well as 2,137 trauma patients. The hospital has a leading endoscopy unit, which basically does bowel screening, and a state-of-the-art cardiac facility, which is now the primary angiogram centre for Northamptonshire and south Leicestershire.

It is true that Kettering general hospital cannot provide the required level of treatment for severe head injuries or severe burns. Such patients are transferred, often by helicopter, to University hospital Coventry down the road, which has a level 3 trauma facility. However, Kettering general hospital is where most trauma patients need to go. Its location, right next to the A14, which is one of the busiest arteries in the midlands, is ideal for the all-too-many road traffic accidents that occur.

Healthier Together is leading a review of acute hospital provision in the south-east midlands that involves the five hospitals in Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes and Luton: Kettering general hospital, Northampton general hospital, Bedford hospital, Milton Keynes hospital and Luton and Dunstable university hospital. Kettering general hospital is the most northerly of those. It is 16 miles from Northampton, 24 miles from Bedford, 34 miles from Milton Keynes and 47 miles from Luton and Dunstable. If we lose our A and E or if it is downgraded, it will simply be too far for people to go to those other facilities.

Healthier Together set up six clinical working groups led by consultants, which produced seven highly theoretical draft models for the way in which acute hospital services could be reconfigured. There are now two preferred models. The problem is that, in one way or another, both the preferred models involve effectively downgrading two of the five hospitals. At the moment, the five hospitals all have A and E, trauma, emergency surgery, complex and elective surgery, acute medicine, ITU, in-patient paediatrics, obstetrics, out-patient diagnostics and in-patient re-ablement services. Under the draft proposals, two of them would not have all those services, and my campaign is to ensure that Kettering is not one of those two. It would be an absolute tragedy for local people were we to lose our ITU, our acute medicine facility, our level 2 trauma unit or our emergency surgery unit, or if the much needed recent investment and next year’s investment in improved paediatrics were moved away from Kettering. Up with it local people simply will not put.

One of my big worries about Healthier Together is that, although a lot of well meaning clinicians are leading the review—I know the Minister is a clinician of some repute himself—they need to realise that they are dealing with patients who do not move around as much as clinicians might. Although it might in theory be very nice to have shiny, brand-new hospitals in ideal locations, people do not live like that. Patients and staff need to have straightforward, easy access to hospital facilities.

There is meant to be public engagement in the Healthier Together review process, led by the so-called patient and public advisory group. I am sure that the individuals on that group are doing their best, but I am afraid they are hardly representative of the population of the south-east midlands. I have been on the comprehensive Healthier Together website today and read through all the material, including the minutes of the patient and public advisory group’s recent meetings. The most recent one whose minutes have been published was in March, so the minutes of a lot of meetings have not yet been published. Of the 17 individuals present at that March meeting, one was from Kettering and five were from Milton Keynes. Reading through the material provided by Healthier Together makes it clear that the process is led and dominated by Milton Keynes. I have nothing against people in Milton Keynes, and I am sure they need health services like everyone else, but there are five acute hospitals in the south-east midlands, not one, and the patients of all five deserve fair representation throughout the process. I invite the Minister to look at the Healthier Together review and see whether he is satisfied that patients and clinicians from across the region are being fully engaged in the process. My contention is that patients, doctors, nurses and ancillary staff from Kettering are not fully involved, which they should be.

One of the key points that has been missing from the review so far is recognition of the importance of access to health care facilities. Healthier Together states in its papers that it has set up a travel and transport working group, which has started to investigate the possible effects on journey times if health services are reconfigured. It states:

“An early task included commissioning independent experts to analyse journey times to hospital by private car and emergency ambulance. That analysis focused on travel at peak rush hours—from 7-9 am and from 4-7 pm.”

We do not need an independent expert to tell us that it is almost impossible to drive from Kettering to Northampton down the A43 during peak time without becoming part of an elongated car park, or that if a nurse had to move to Northampton she would find it very difficult to get there in the morning by public transport. There is no rail link between the two towns, and the bus service is intermittent. We do not need an independent expert to tell us that Kettering residents who want to visit an elderly relative in hospital would find it very difficult, without public transport, to go to Northampton, Bedford, Luton or Milton Keynes.

Evidence—if we need more—of the pressure placed on Kettering hospital by the growth in local population was provided a few weeks ago by Monitor’s intervention in order that the hospital improve its A and E targets. Kettering hospital is treating 10% more A and E patients year in, year out; it is treating more A and E patients this year than last year, but it does not treat 95% within four hours and is in significant breach of statutory targets. Monitor has intervened, quite rightly, and told the hospital to sort that out, which I am confident it will sort out. That situation is indicative of the growth in the local population and the pressure that that is putting on local A and E facilities.

I am grateful for the chance to put the concerns of local people about our hospital directly to the Minister on the Floor of the House, and let me tell him, as plainly as I can, that the situation is completely unacceptable to everyone in Kettering, whatever political party they support or even if they support no political party. We will not put up with our accident and emergency service or maternity wings being downgraded.

Local staff at the hospital are doing their best in difficult circumstances against a background of one of the fastest population increases in the country. Healthier Together needs to get its act together because Kettering hospital is going to have a bright future, whatever clinicians in Milton Keynes might say.

Leeds Children’s Heart Surgery Unit

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I am just checking that the seven Members standing match the seven names in front of me, and they do tally. We have 45 minutes until I call the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, which gives you about six minutes each. I cannot enforce that, but I urge Members to stick to six minutes so that everyone can get in. To be helpful, I will read out the batting order: Nic Dakin, Greg Mulholland, George Mudie, Martin Vickers, Julian Sturdy, David Ward and Andrew Jones.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Vickers]

As usual, my hon. Friend and neighbour is correct. Because of the remoteness and so on, the assumption that all patients in northern Lincolnshire will transfer to Newcastle will simply not be borne out. They will choose alternatives and I suggest that most will gravitate south. Therefore the Newcastle target of 403 will not be achieved.

There are expert opinions on both sides of the argument. The significant point is that the parents and grandparents of the children who receive the treatment are not convinced about the alternatives, because they have seen surgeons and other experts in Leeds performing miracles on their children with modern medical technology. That is their doubt: they do not have confidence in the alternatives when they have seen the Leeds centre of excellence in action.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey stole a line from me because I too was going to quote the point that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) made in last week’s debate. I will take another line from his speech:

“The Secretary of State has the levers of power in this question and he must pull them—he must exercise them”.—[Official Report, 22 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 188WH.]

That is what we expect. We do not want the question shuffled off to a panel of experts, with automatic acceptance of what they say. Different experts come up with different decisions.

Time is pressing. In Leeds we have a centre of excellence. It deserves our support, and already has the support of those we represent. I am sure that the Minister and the Secretary of State would not want to be responsible for destroying it.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

If the final three hon. Members who want to speak in the debate take five minutes, they will all get in.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. Mr Sturdy has about three minutes remaining.

[Julian Sturdy]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. As I was saying, throughout this saga I have been reluctant to compare the Leeds unit directly with others, in particular Newcastle’s. My intention is not to criticise the Newcastle unit, which has also carried out great work, saving many young lives over a number of years. Rather, my belief continues to be that the Leeds unit has always had the strengths to merit its survival without such comparisons. Put simply, its own case is strong enough. That is my message to the Minister today, and it was also put eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey.

The single biggest failing in the consultation has been the flawed decision-making process of the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts, from the lack of weight given to transport and travel times, and the population that centres such as Leeds serve, to the true co-location of services. There has also been a lack of clarity over the terms of the review, and the failure of the JCPCT to release the information and evidence behind its decision is only adding to the controversy and suspicion. Without being able to break down the scores awarded to each children’s heart surgery unit by Professor Sir Ian Kennedy’s assessment panel, the decision-making process lacks basic transparency and scrutiny.

Throughout York there exists huge public interest in this ongoing and disruptive issue. I am particularly concerned for the families of affected children in York who now face the problem of having to travel to other areas for treatment—I stress “other areas”. The Minister must be under no illusion that the families and children displaced to Newcastle if Leeds closes will not automatically head north. They will disperse to centres throughout the country, and we must not lose sight of that.

In conclusion, the Save our Surgery campaign has suggested a balanced solution to the current dispute, as set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey. It suggests that the decision should be implemented in full throughout the country, but delayed in the north-east until April 2014. That window of opportunity could then be used to clarify the figures and findings of the JCPCT, allowing both affected units to demonstrate their capacity and capability on a level playing field.

I am delighted that since the election, the Government have worked to make health services more representative and more responsive to local people. I urge the Minister to continue that fine work by listening to the concerns of patients and residents in Yorkshire and taking on board and responding positively to the Save our Surgery campaign to save the children’s heart surgery unit in Leeds from an unjust and ill-informed closure.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Let us look at some of the facts. The number of clinical staff in the NHS has gone up since the coalition came to power. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the cost of the reforms, which is about £1.6 billion. Thanks to those reforms, we will save £1.5 billion every single year from 2014 and the total savings in this Parliament will be £5.5 billion. Let me remind him that he left the NHS with £73 billion of private finance initiative debt, which costs the NHS £1.6 billion every single year. That money cannot be spent on patient care. He should be ashamed of that.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that NHS spending will increase in real terms during the lifetime of this Government, and that there are no plans from anyone to close the accident and emergency department and the maternity unit at Kettering general hospital? Will he condemn those who say that the Government want to close the hospital, when nobody is going to do that at all?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: that is a mendacious scare story that is being put out on the ground. Real-terms spending on the NHS has increased across the country, which has not been possible across all Government Departments. Because of that, we are able to invest more in patient care, cancer drugs, doctors and facilities across the country, and indeed in Kettering.

Children’s Cardiac Surgery (Glenfield)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Liz Kendall]

We have all met many children, some of whom are now adults, and families who have received excellent care and support. It is important that we put their views forward strongly and that the best peer-reviewed and validated clinical evidence is considered in the new review.

As many hon. Members have said, Dr Palmer wrote to the former Secretary of State saying that he sharply opposes the use of his name for the proposed transfer of services from Leicester to Birmingham. A similar view is taken by leading international ECMO experts from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organisation, which also wrote to the former Secretary of State:

“We are united in our dismay. We are united in our dismay at the proposed move of ECMO services from the Glenfield programme in Leicester to elsewhere…The Glenfield program is clearly and objectively recognised as one of the finest ECMO programs in the world. Movement of an established unit such as Glenfield in the manner described will have profound negative consequences on the outcomes of patients needing ECMO. This move…is one clearly likely to produce results that will have a human toll in increased deaths.”

That is why the specific evidence on ECMO must be fully considered, including by the new review.

An issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) and several other hon. Members must also be considered by the new Independent Reconfiguration Panel: whether the assumptions about the level of cases remain based on the best available evidence. The Safe and Sustainable review looked at surgical activity data from the central cardiac audit database for 2002 to 2006—the latest evidence available at the time—which suggest that the number of cases for heart surgery would remain roughly stable over the next 20 years. New validated data, however, are now available for three more years—to 2010—showing a consistent rise in activity, suggesting that adult and paediatric activity will each increase by approximately 75 cases per year.

We also have new evidence from the Office for National Statistics about population growth, which comes from data published in October last year and indicates that there will be substantial increases in the number of nought to four-year-olds, in particular in the east midlands, the east of England and London. That causes real concern about whether Birmingham will be able to cope with all the extra cases that it will receive.

Birmingham’s case load will also increase because of the closure of Northern Ireland’s children’s heart surgery services. The Safe and Sustainable review reports an all-Ireland framework, with Northern Ireland cases going to Dublin, but that will take several years to establish and, in the meantime, a significant and increasing number of babies will continue to travel to Birmingham.

The Birmingham children’s hospital itself is concerned about whether it has the capacity to cope with all the extra cases that it will receive from a closing Glenfield, from the likely increase in surgical activity, from the increase in population, in particular among the nought to fours, and from the increase in cases coming from Northern Ireland. The hospital, I understand, has analysed the case load and produced an internal paper concluding that it would have to perform 1,000 cases a year, which is at the very limit of what the Safe and Sustainable review panel reported as a safe number for cases to be treated. I urge the IRP—rather than the Minister, if she cannot do anything—to look at whether that paper has been written and to assess all such evidence in its review.

Finally, like the previous Government, this Government rightly want changes to children’s heart surgery services so that they provide not only safe standards of care, but excellent, high-quality standards for every child in every part of the country. Just as they want that for children’s heart surgery services, they must want that for children’s ECMO services. It is not good enough to say that it is possible to move a service; we want to know whether it is desirable to move a service to get the very best outcomes.

Glenfield survival rates are 50% higher than any other unit’s in this country and internationally. It will take at least five and probably up to 10 years to redevelop the same quality of service. No one would take the best service in the country for children’s heart surgery and close and move it, so no one should do that for ECMO either.

The issue is of concern to my constituents and those of hon. Members from throughout the east midlands, and to families everywhere in the country. Such people include Clare Johnson, a constituent of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). She contacted my right hon. Friend to tell him about the experience of her son, Michael. Michael was born in July last year with severe meconium aspiration, which means that his lungs fill with a substance that makes it very difficult to breathe. His lungs haemorrhaged and his heart failed. The paediatric mobile ECMO service from Leicester came to collect him and transferred him to Glenfield. He was on the ECMO machine 24 hours a day for four days; when he came off it, his heart and lungs were working for themselves. Ms Johnson said:

“As soon as the team arrived to prepare him for transfer, their evident skill and professionalism gave us that very first glimmer of hope…The care we received was second to none.”

Ms Johnson also said that:

“although I am not the best person to point out facts and figures, I cannot help but pore over the evidence available and the main thing that strikes me is the ECMO survival rate”,

which is so much better. She said:

“Glenfield is the only unit to offer Mobile ECMO”—

the very service to save her son—and concludes:

“I understand that I probably sound like a Mother who is just wanting to support the unit who saved her baby’s life”

but:

“My beautiful baby boy Michael Martin Johnson died at 10.40 pm, 8 days after his birth and 3 hours after being transferred back to Hull from Leicester. He had a reaction to some medication he was given and died very suddenly and unexpectedly of a severe gastric perforation. A successful result will not bring my son back. But it WILL prevent other mothers from losing their child, as that IS the ultimate and inevitable result that stopping ECMO at Glenfield will have.”

Clare Johnson makes the case far more eloquently than I ever could. I hope that the IRP looks properly at Glenfield’s ECMO service and at the real benefits that it brings. The Minister has rightly said it is up to the IRP to consider the evidence, but it was the new Secretary of State who decided not to include ECMO as part of the review—that is what he says in his letter today—and that is a mistake, because the two services need to be looked at together. I ask the Minister to explain why the Secretary of State has explicitly excluded ECMO from the new review. That is the wrong decision and I hope that it will be changed.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

After the Minister has spoken, I will call Sir Edward Garnier to wind up the debate.