Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman was looked after by Guy’s and St Thomas’s, where my mother was a nurse and where I was born, so I have connections to that trust as well. He is right about making sure that we get the culture right. It is about creating a more supportive environment for people who do a very, very tough job every day of the week. When we have a conversation along those lines with patients and with our constituents, they understand that as well. More than anything else, they want to know that lessons are going to be learned and acted on.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Was it necessary to delay the report’s publication for two or three months—a week or two I could understand—and will it now be published not in a fortnight’s time, before Christmas, but next week, when we will be here?

[Mr Hunt]

I hope the report will be published next week. The commitment I have from NHS England is that it will be published before Christmas. I am confident that, whenever it is published, it will generate huge media interest, rightly so and partly thanks to the shadow Health Secretary’s urgent question. When the draft report was sent to the trust, it came back with 300 individual items of concern, and it was right for NHS England, in the interests of accuracy and justice, to consider fully all those concerns. It has given me an assurance, however, that, whether or not it can reach an agreement with the trust about its contents, the report will be published before Christmas.