NHS (Government Spending)

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I have been a Member of Parliament for nearly 10 years and I have never had so many complaints about the NHS as I have received in recent months. In a recent survey that I carried out, more than 35% of people who responded had had to wait more than a week to see a GP. I have seen many parents who are concerned about the length of time they have waited for their children to receive a diagnosis of autism, or to get an appointment with child and adolescent mental health services. Our four hour-target rate at A and E in Hull stands at about 74.9%, which is one of the lowest in the country. We also have very high levels of cancelled operations.

We now have a new chief executive, who is doing his very best, with a dedicated team of front-line staff, to deal with the pressures on A and E, and I want to pay tribute to them for their work. However, what I really wish to focus on in this short contribution is a report on financial irregularities, which has been published on the front page of my local newspaper today. It concerns the regime that existed under the former chief executive of Hull Royal Infirmary, Phil Morley, who left the hospital very suddenly last April, just before the publication of a very damning report by the Care Quality Commission, which outlined concerns about bullying, staff shortages and the care that was being provided at the hospital. Within a few months of his leaving and the damning report, he turned up as a chief executive at the Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow, earning—I found out from a freedom of information request—£170,000. The report published this morning is a leaked report, but I want to read this out, because I am sure that all hon. Members will be concerned to learn what has happened to NHS money:

“In a draft report leaked”

to the Hull Daily Mail

“external auditors KPMG, called in to investigate financial concerns, said there was ‘an undeclared conflict of interest’ between Mr Morley and chief operating officer Amanda Pye. The NHS watchdog for hospital trusts was asked to consider calling in a team involved in examining financial irregularities and suspicions of fraud ‘due to the seniority of staff involved and potential conflicts of interest’.”

That included—I am sure that hon. Members will be concerned about this—payment for a sunset cruise on a luxury yacht in 2012 for Mr Morley and senior members of his management team in Florida. It also says:

“Mr Morley amended draft minutes from a committee set up to approve salaries and additional payments to staff”.

This includes a payment made for a relocation allowance, when there was no relocation, and the person ended up having to pay £8,000 back to the trust. As I have said, there was a conflict of interest between Mr Morley and a senior member of his team.

This has all come to light as a result of the investigative journalism by Allison Coggan at the Hull Daily Mail and by Vicky Johnson at the local BBC. I think it is shocking that the chair of the audit committee, when asked on television by Vicky Johnson why she had not challenged what the chief executive was doing, said that she was scared to challenge him. This is NHS money, and we know that every penny counts. I have raised this on the Floor of the House with the Secretary of State. Initially, he said that there was nothing he could do about it, so I wrote to him and received a letter from the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), saying that there was nothing that could be done. Finally, we had a meeting with the Secretary of State, who has arranged for the Trust Development Authority to investigate what was going on in that trust.

It is of concern to many hon. Members and to me that where there are financial irregularities in the NHS, it seems that chief executives can move from one trust, having made a mess of things, straight into another job. It seems as if they are protected, which it is fundamentally wrong when it is NHS money—public money. My constituents will certainly be worried about the story on the front page of today’s Hull Daily Mail, and the fact that this individual is still in a post paid for by the NHS in another part of the country earning a lot of money. I hope that the Minister can reassure me that the TDA will do a thorough and proper investigation into what went on in that trust, because it is not acceptable that this man still holds a chief executive position.