North East Ambulance Service

Baroness Foster of Oxton Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I completely agree with the sentiment expressed. We should be grateful to all public service workers. They were put under immense strain during the early days of Covid and beyond, and still face some of those issues. There is no doubt that the extra pressure that people face in the workforce can have an impact on their behaviour. Going back to the point made about culture by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, we have to look at incentives and disincentives, and why people behave in a certain way. We have to not only question that but ask what we can do better in the future. That is the point of learning. We want people to be as transparent as possible, and to feel free to come forward and explain where things have gone wrong.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, this is not just about the ambulance service; it is about a culture that is endemic throughout the NHS. I have spent most of my life dealing with the aviation industry, which learned decades ago that if you cover things up, whether deliberately or not, you will never get to the source of the problem. This is why we have such high standards in that industry. Does my noble friend agree that, until and unless we take a fresh look at this and have a no-blame culture, which will then encourage people to come forward if they see things that are not working, we will not get past where we are today?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I begin by paying respect to my noble friend’s experience in the aviation sector. Noble Lords who took part in the debate on the Health and Care Bill will know that, when we spoke about HSSIB and safe space, that concept came from learning from the air transport industry and—I hope I get this right—the air transport accidents board, with respect to transparency. When that industry was able to have a frank, open culture and people felt free to step forward without fear of prosecution, it was found that people were frank and could learn from mistakes. This is what we are hoping to do with HSSIB, in the same way—to let people come forward, have a frank and open discussion about what went wrong, and make sure we learn from our mistakes. This is the important thing that we want to learn from the air transport industry; we hope that it will help us to improve the culture for health and care workers.