NHS Reorganisation

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is room for reform, but not room to risk the GP-patient relationship? Dr Gerada and the Manchester business school have both highlighted that there is a risk that bonuses and profits could be put above diagnoses and treatment.

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is right: this reorganisation and legislation leave no part of the NHS untouched. One big concern is that when GPs are making both rationing and referral decisions at the same time, patients will start to ask whether their GP is making a judgment about their treatment in their best interests or in the best interests of his or her budget and consortia business. That can hit at the trust at the heart of the patient-doctor relationship.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

I understand that the PCT will continue to work with health care providers to develop existing and future services at Redcar primary care hospital, and to promote the availability of services, but I would be more than delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss that issue.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

T7. Every 23 minutes, someone in the UK is diagnosed with a blood cancer disorder—that is 23,600 people per year, including many children. Survival often depends on a donor match. Today until 6 pm, the Anthony Nolan trust has a stand in Portcullis House, where people can get more information, and where those under 40 can register. Will the Minister join me in promoting the donor register and in encouraging MPs and staff to visit the stand?

[Paul Burstow]

I think that more than one of us wanted to do just that, because the Anthony Nolan trust does a fantastic job. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise awareness of it, and all hon. Members should take the opportunity to visit its stand today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The reforms we propose will bring far greater accountability not only through local authorities but through patient choice and through front-line clinicians being able to commission services.

Let me also tell my hon. Friend that I have today referred to the independent reconfiguration panel, for initial appraisal, the question referred to me by Lancashire county council about the children’s ward at Burnley hospital.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State join me in deprecating the outrageous behaviour of the Prime Minister’s aides who told the Financial Times that the Secretary of State, on his reorganisation, has all the answers—unfortunately to all the wrong questions?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman should not believe what he reads in the papers and when he is trying to quote from them, he should do so accurately.

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Of course, by definition, contractual rights cannot be retrospectively applied, but let me make it clear that I will be issuing guidance in terms that I have set out to the House in my statement today—albeit that we might need to do more. That guidance is entirely intended to move the NHS to an open culture that encourages staff to raise concerns. As I said to the Patients Association yesterday, we must have a culture of challenge inside the NHS under which the offence is not to make a mistake, as mistakes are human, but to seek to cover up or ignore a mistake. That is what happens in the best organisations and it must be what happens throughout the NHS.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s promise of early action. Will he tell us how many members of the present board were in post on 18 March 2009 and when he will sack them as he has promised?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman will forgive me: I know that the chief executive, the chair, the nursing director and others have moved on, but I do not know the precise answer and I will write to him about that. In relation to any individuals, I think it is proper that, having asked Robert Francis to conduct a further inquiry that takes account of all that he discovered in the first report and that covers the same period of time—2005 to 2009—he is free to make recommendations that will bear upon people working inside the trust and in organisations, and upon how they discharge those responsibilities.