Health Bill (Fourth sitting)

Dave Robertson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Public Bill Committees

For example, on the adoption of electronic record-keeping systems, certain trusts used a number of them that did not speak to each other. There was a cultural barrier—if by culture, we mean work culture—in that some NHS trusts were very good at embedding and adopting an electronic patient record system that was uniform across the trust, or, where more than one system was operating, the systems were interoperable and spoke to each other. In other NHS trusts, there was a cultural issue of wanting to leave teams alone and not disrupt their working practices, even if the imposition of a new system would have delivered efficiency and better patient outcomes.

[Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)]

I think this is the first time we have had a Robertson on Robertson intervention. It is a pleasure to break that duck.

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point about the need to change culture to embed innovation across the NHS. There is an example that we always come back to: fax machines. Fax machines were used in the NHS for far too long. It was mandated in 2018 that the use of all fax machines had to be stopped by the end of March 2020, yet in 2023, the NHS still owned 600. That mandation came up against a cultural barrier and it did not work, because 600 of them survived for three years after that.

In amendment 58, I see more mandation and nothing on culture. The problem with the amendment is that, by trying to mandate innovation too closely, we would miss the cultural point. We could undermine the Secretary of State’s power to say that all parts of the system are fair game for them. Would the hon. Gentleman like to respond to that point?

[Joe Robertson]

I thank my namesake for his intervention. I do not completely understand what he says, because the amendment refers to cultural barriers. He is absolutely right that we have to be careful when we mandate things, but the strength of the amendment is that it has a broad application and does not seek to mandate specific detail. I accept that it has more detail than the Bill, but its strength is that it gives some direction without being overly detailed. I again draw his attention to the fact that it asks the Secretary of State and the Department to identify and remove cultural barriers.