Jimmy Savile: NHS Investigations

Baroness Masham of Ilton Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend makes a series of extremely powerful and pertinent points and I am in agreement with the thrust of them. She is absolutely right that this is a matter of the culture of an organisation. While I think we can say hand on heart that the culture in the NHS has in many respects changed for the better in recent years, we must never be complacent about this. This matter was particularly identified by Sir Robert Francis in his recent report on whistleblowing, and we have accepted his recommendations. For example, we will ask every NHS organisation to identify one member of staff to whom other members of staff can speak if they have particular concerns and are not being listened to. We will also consult on establishing a new independent national whistleblowing guardian as a full-time post within the CQC to fulfil the kind of independent role that my noble friend refers to. In that context we are legislating to protect from discrimination whistleblowers who apply for NHS jobs. Therefore, I think that there are things that we can do with the mechanisms to ensure that the NHS is a more benign place for people who would otherwise feel too frightened to speak up.

Nevertheless, the further consultation on mandatory reporting which I have undertaken we will carry out will, I am sure, bring all this into the frame again. I have no doubt—at least, I hope—that my noble friend will feed into that consultation in the way that she has just indicated.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as I have been a patient at the Stoke Mandeville spinal unit since 1958, when I broke my back. I knew Jimmy Savile to some extent over the years. He was very autocratic and very clever, but I never saw his dark side. Many of the people working at Stoke Mandeville did not see that side of him because he was so clever.

There is a problem with hospitals. They do not like bad publicity and there can be cover-ups. We need openness and honesty. I should like to ask the Minister about the present procedure for patients, who need an easy and quick way of raising their concerns. That is very important because many patients are at risk of having bad things done to them. Sometimes those bad things may be done by people on the ward, so patients need to bypass the ward but they cannot just be told that they have to go to the health ombudsman. That takes too long. Therefore, I hope that the procedure for patients will be given great consideration in the future.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Baroness has our admiration for the way in which she has coped with her spinal injury over these many years. She is, of course, absolutely right about the way in which Jimmy Savile duped so many people. He was a forceful character as well as somebody with a superficial charm, and he got away with what he did. She is, of course, correct that the protection of patients lies at the centre of all this and we must ensure that we have proper systems in place to make them feel confident that they can come forward.

I take the noble Baroness’s point about patients perhaps not feeling able to complain to the ward staff. The answer to her question is that the patient, or someone on their behalf, can complain to the chairman of the organisation or trust or to a member of the board, and thus bypass the clinical staff. There should always be a member of the board at the hospital whose responsibility is the protection of patients above all. In the end, it is for that organisation to investigate its own supposed failings. If somebody is not satisfied with the result of that investigation, it is then open to them to go to the ombudsman. We believe that complaints should be investigated at a local level, either with the provider of the service or, if that is not thought appropriate for any reason, with the commissioner of the service.