Health: Maternity Care Provisions in East Kent

Debate between Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford and Lord Ribeiro

Thursday 13th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The noble Baroness raises an important question, which I am sure will be considered as part of NHS England’s independent review and the CQC’s questions around quality of leadership, but I will make a wider point for those who may be listening about the safety of maternity care in the UK. We are rightly focusing on the questions of East Kent, but for those who may be considering giving birth at the moment it is important to state that the NHS is one of the safest places in the world to give birth. Some 0.7% of births result in a stillbirth or neonatal birth. We have stated that our ambition is to halve this rate of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths, and brain injuries by 2025. We have already achieved our ambition of a 20% reduction by 2020. A message of reassurance, alongside the firm actions we are taking to address the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, is appropriate and important.

[Lord Ribeiro (Con)]

My Lords, I echo the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Brinton, about the role of the chief executive. I watched the news last night and was horrified to hear her say that she had no knowledge of the review until 2018, yet that review was requested by the medical director of the trust in 2015. If she is unaware of what is happening in her own trust, serious questions need to be asked. In view of what the noble Baroness just said about maternity services, it is important that we send a very clear message to our midwives on the front line. They need to be supported and we need to send the message, not just to the ones in East Kent but to those throughout the UK, that they have our support.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

My noble friend is, as ever, very wise on this. A key plank of the maternity safety strategy, launched in 2016, is a number of initiatives to improve not only clinical care but culture in maternity services. They have been designed to improve leadership and to ensure that in every trust there is a midwife, an obstetrician and a board-level maternity safety champion to spearhead improvement. It is critical that we ensure that this is delivered so that incidents such as this do not occur.

Paterson Inquiry

Debate between Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford and Lord Ribeiro

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ribeiro (Con)]

My Lords, as a past president of the Royal College of Surgeons, I wish to associate myself with the comments of the current president, Professor Derek Alderson. In response to the report, he said:

“The horrific experience of patients at Paterson’s hands is laid bare in today’s report. The healthcare system has failed hundreds of patients and their families, and we must learn from what went wrong. Following their thorough investigation, we welcome the inquiry’s recommendations today, designed to improve patient safety.


We have repeatedly called for the same safety standards to be enforced across both the NHS and private healthcare sector. The inquiry has also stressed this and agreed with our recommendation that a single repository of information about consultants’ practice should be created. We recommended this in our evidence to the inquiry because it allows the NHS and private sector to share information and raise any concerns about patient safety much more quickly.”


When the Bill comes before us, we will be discussing the health service safety investigation body—HSSIB. Can the Minister say whether, in the light of the Paterson inquiry, the Bill might be amended to ensure that HSSIB has the power to investigate all patient safety incidents that occur in the independent private sector as well as in the NHS, not just NHS patients referred to the private sector?

In his introduction, Bishop Graham says:

“It is wishful thinking that this could not happen again.”


Well, this week the British Medical Journal reports on an orthopaedic shoulder surgeon working in the same Spire Parkway Hospital who has had 217 patients recalled because of concerns about his practice. A solicitor for the patients involved said:

“The main concern seems to be that people were having unnecessary surgery under general anaesthetic.”


There are echoes of Paterson’s behaviour. Another recall at the same hospital suggests systemic failings. Given the outcome of the Paterson inquiry, which showed that lessons have still to be learned, how can we ensure that these lessons are learned?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank my noble friend for that question, and for his important contribution. He is of course very experienced in this area. Obviously we are looking for time in the legislative agenda to bring forward HSSIB. It is appropriate that we consider the patient safety elements of this report’s recommendations in the context of that Bill. In the previous Second Reading debate, which we look forward to repeating, we discussed the issues around the independent sector. But we will also separately, and perhaps in conjunction with that, consult on the key changes necessary to enable data on admitted patient care to be transferred from the Private Healthcare Information Network and independent providers directly to NHS Digital, which should start to take us in the direction of closing the gap, which I know that many noble Lords in the House are rightly concerned about.