Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Poulter and Bernard Jenkin

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be pleased that, as part of our winter pressures funding, Dudley received £3.5 million to support the hospital during a difficult winter period. There are now 69 more doctors and 324 more nurses, of whom 29 are extra midwives, working in the area than in 2010.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

12. What discussions he has had with (a) the Haven project in Colchester and (b) NHS bodies in north Essex on the need for continuing funding for support for people with moderate to severe personality disorder.

Francis Report

Debate between Dan Poulter and Bernard Jenkin

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

I will talk about complaints a little later, but the right hon. Gentleman has made some important points. When we consider how to improve the delivery of care in our health service, it is important that we examine international comparisons. The system in New Zealand includes a different form of compensation, and perhaps that is partly why it has a more open culture—there could be many other factors. It is acknowledged much earlier in the process that something has gone wrong, and there is a genuine attempt to explain the situation to the family and say sorry. That is what good health care is all about.

No matter how good, well trained and dedicated staff are, things will sometimes go wrong in a health service. When they do, it is important that we are open and honest with patients and that we do our best to put things right if we can, or explain and apologise if we cannot. That is why we believe that the duty of candour needs to exist at organisational level. Of course, I am happy to write to the right hon. Gentleman, or meet him if he would like to talk through some of the issues that he raised today. He makes good points, and I know that he does so on a completely apolitical basis because he has the best interests of the health service at heart. We might disagree on other issues, but on this one it is worth having a meeting to discuss his views further.

Subject to the passage of the Care Bill, a new criminal offence will be introduced to penalise providers who give false or misleading information where that information is required to comply with statutory or other legal obligations. It means that those directors or other senior individuals, including managers, who consent to, connive in, or are negligent regarding an offence committed by the provider could be subject on conviction to unlimited fines or even custodial sentences. We must ensure that managers and those running the health and care service in a health care provider provide information in an honest and transparent way that is always in the best interests of patients.

Importantly, we are introducing through the Care Bill a single failure regime to ensure that failure is not only about the financial sustainability of the trust, but about whether a health care provider is providing good care, and the quality of that care. One problem in the past with the trust special administration regime has been that it is rarely used. When it is used, however, it is important to ensure that it is there to protect patients. Often in the past it was used only in a way that focused on financial failure. One important lesson to learn from Mid Staffs is that there should be a failure regime that also considers quality of care. Hospitals are not just about good accounts; they are primarily about delivering good care, which is why we need a single failure regime. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been a tremendous advocate for the importance of quality of care in trust, and he should be commended for that. Thanks to him, we are now ensuring that we improve the TSA regime in that way.

[Mr Jenkin]

The Minister is outlining the legislative and regulatory changes that arise from the Francis report, but does he agree with the Health Committee, which attaches far more importance to the leadership academy mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State? Is not the quality of leadership much more important to the day-to-day care that is delivered throughout the health service, and will the Minister say a bit more about that?

[Dr Poulter]

I am not sure whether my hon. Friend has seen my brief, but that was exactly the point I was coming to. He is absolutely right and he highlighted the issue earlier in a strong contribution to the debate. It is important to empower front-line staff to be advocates for patient care and to take leadership roles in hospitals. Clinical leadership is at the core of everything that needs to be done, and we must promote strong leadership throughout a health care organisation, and throughout the sector.

We amended the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 so that a person has the right to expect their employer to take reasonable steps to prevent them from suffering detriment from a co-worker as a result of blowing the whistle. That has supported clinical workers and front-line staff in raising concerns and as whistleblowers. We established the NHS Leadership Academy in 2012 as the national hub for leadership development and talent management. Since it launched its NHS fast-track executive programme in January, there have been more than 1,600 applicants. We are also introducing a new fit and proper person test for directors of registered health care providers, which will allow the CQC to insist on the removal of directors who are responsible for poor care. Those strong steps are in place, and there are others, which I would be happy to discuss another time with my hon. Friend, to embed not just clinical leadership but good leadership throughout our health and care services.

Importantly, in delivering high-quality care and embedding good leadership, we must focus much more on outcomes rather than targets. That goes to the centre of what Robert Francis said, and is led by good clinical leadership. What matters in the health service is that we deliver high-quality care based on good outcomes of care for patients, and we must listen to patients about what good care looks like. The Government are delivering those things, which are at the centre of what Robert Francis recommended as lessons to be learned from Mid Staffs.

Finally, I mention the important issue of embedding the patient voice and listening when things go wrong. As the shadow Minister outlined, the Government have introduced the friends and family test, through which nearly 1.6 million patients have already given instant, real-time, feedback to the NHS about their care. Patients are saying what their experience of care is like. It is not about ticking a box or meeting a target; patients are feeding back information and saying, “Yes my care was good” or “No, my care was not as good as it could have been, and this is how it could be improved.” Good care is about ensuring that we deliver clinical excellence through clinical leadership, listening to patients, and ensuring that we feed back their experiences into delivering better services and a better experience of care. Those are things the Government are doing.

Through the chief inspectors of hospitals, social care and general practice, we are putting proper clinical leadership into the inspection process. We are also ensuring that all feedback from patients, whether concerns voiced on the ward or complaints made once they are back at home, makes a difference. I pay tribute in particular to the work done by the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley on the complaints process, on which there were valuable lessons to be learnt. I thank her for her efforts, which have made a big difference. We are still working on further measures we can put in place to ensure that complaints are listened to. This is all about listening to patients, learning lessons and delivering better care.

We are proud of our record in government in listening to patients and ensuring that we develop proper clinical leadership. We are also proud that, as a result of the Francis report and the measures put in place by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, we are beginning to deliver much greater transparency in our health service. It is also important that we have that transparency in the back office. I disagree with what the shadow Minister said about not needing to reorganise the back room. We have to deliver more transparency, better procurement and improvements in how we run the hospital estate. If we do that properly, there will be more money to deliver high-quality patient care.

The coalition Government—I know the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), agrees with me strongly on this—want to see a more productive NHS that is patient-centred and does not waste money in the back office that should be spent on patient care. I make no apologies for organisational steps such as the removal of many of the bureaucratic processes in place under the previous Government, thus saving £1.5 billion a year already. That is good, because it means that more money goes to the front line to deliver high-quality patient care.

The 65th year of the NHS was perhaps its most challenging—certainly in recent memory. The Francis inquiry threw up many challenges for our health and care system, but I believe we are meeting those challenges. Our Government are ensuring that our NHS remains a health service of which we can all be proud, not just today but for many years to come.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of the Francis Report: One year on.