Hospital Mortality Rates

Alan Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. Friend speaks very wisely. As I know he agrees, identifying problems publicly is incredibly difficult, but the way to ensure that those problems are dealt with is to be totally honest and transparent about them in the knowledge that they will be sorted out as a result, and that is what is happening today.

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

Thankfully, the quality of Sir Bruce Keogh’s report is vastly superior to that of the statement that we heard from the Secretary of State. Is it not the case that Sir Bruce Keogh—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am very concerned about the fact that someone shouted something, and I think I heard a word that was unparliamentary. I did not see an individual who was responsible, and I do not know who was responsible, but I simply say to the House—[Interruption.] Order. It is no good people burbling on about whistleblowers from a sedentary position. Let us lower the temperature, and have orderly exchanges. [Interruption.] Order. I remind the House that I called the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) to ask a question. Let us do him the courtesy of hearing the conclusion of that question.

[Alan Johnson]

Is it not the case that Sir Bruce may have given us a blueprint for better regulation, provided that the Secretary of State faces up to his responsibility and ends the tawdry and squalid attempts by his party to denigrate his predecessors?

[Mr Hunt]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, who is one of those predecessors, would accept at a quieter moment outside the Chamber that one of the biggest mistakes made during his time as Secretary of State—or at least it was initiated then—was the appalling change that was made to the regulation of hospitals. The CQC was stripped of expert inspectors, and hospitals began to be inspected by generalists. The same group of people would inspect a slimming clinic, a dental practice, a GP’s surgery, and a major London teaching hospital. That very significant mistake lies at the heart of the reason why the CQC approved and certified so many failing hospitals.

I am happy to work with the right hon. Gentleman, and to say that honest mistakes were made and we will put them right, but today there must be honesty about what those mistakes were.