Maternity Services in Morecambe Bay

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, back in 2006 the Minister and I had the unhappy experience of being in opposition when the NHS Redress Act went through your Lordships’ House. We are both on record as saying at the time that we felt that it was a fairly inadequate piece of legislation. I think the 44 recommendations in this report are searing evidence that that is in fact the case.

In the wake of the reports by Dame Carol Black, Sir Robert Francis and Sir Bruce Keogh, does the Minister agree that it is now time for a thorough root and branch review of the legislation underpinning the NHS complaints system? I have very little time in which to deal with the great many points in this report, but I wish to ask the Minister about two, which are important. First, in recommendation 27, the regulatory bodies, the GMC and the NMC, are asked to reconsider the guidance to professionals about what to do if they suspect that clinical standards or services are not being fulfilled. It seems to me that in this case there was a failure at every level in that respect. That is unacceptable. Secondly, the report points to the breakdown of the relationship between the CQC and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. They had no communication and the consequence was that the families had nowhere to go to seek redress. It is difficult because that ombudsman is both the parliamentary and the health service ombudsman for Members of Parliament to make recommendations about ways in which the health service might be reformed. Will the Government act quickly on the recommendation of this report that there should be a memorandum of understanding between the CQC and that ombudsman?

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to my noble friend and I do indeed recall our debates on the NHS Redress Act. It is telling that the previous Government chose not to bring that Act into force in the end. The recommendation in the report that there should be a fundamental review of the NHS complaints system is one that we will consider very carefully. We agree that there are still challenges to improving NHS complaints handling, including improving the culture around complaints. Those challenges have been well documented. Our work to improve complaints handling across the board was set out in our update on progress in response to the Francis inquiries in February. Complaints and how they are handled is now one of the key strands of inquiry in all inspections of the CQC.

On my noble friend’s point in relation to recommendation 27, the GMC, the NMC and the PSA have guidance in place on how to raise and act on concerns about patient safety. We will work with these bodies to determine whether this guidance needs strengthening in the light of this report. The GMC has been undertaking its own review of how it deals with doctors who raise concerns in the public interest.

On my noble friend’s final point about the disjointedness of the CQC and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, a new MOU was signed in September 2013 which outlined how the two organisations would collaborate, co-operate and share information relating to their respective roles. It is without question that the lack of co-ordination between the CQC and the PHSO was a contributory factor to the ongoing inability of the wider system to identify and act on failings at the trust.