University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[John Woodcock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that that is indeed the great fear. It is up to the trust, and ultimately to Ministers and the Government, to demonstrate that that is not the case, but there are still questions to be answered.

The need for lessons to be learned has been shown by such problems as the basic lack of grip in key areas in recent years—for example, the failure of new computer systems designed to remind patients about repeat appointments, which has clearly put lives at risk. A police investigation into a number of deaths is ongoing. There is also a lack of openness at the trust.

I pay tribute to the hard work of the staff in the maternity unit and across Furness general hospital. They are dedicated people, who come to work wanting to help others and to save lives. There have been real improvements of late, and we should recognise the immense strain placed on staff by the ongoing spotlight on the hospital and the longer-term uncertainty over their future. None the less, families are still grieving because of past mistakes made in a poorly managed system. The Minister was good enough to write to me in response to a letter from my constituent James Titcombe, and again recently on the need for a genuinely independent inquiry into the lessons for the wider NHS of management failings at Furness general hospital.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and, as I know from having worked with him, on his concern for his constituents. Does he not think that we constantly go round the roundabout in relation to the Morecambe Bay trust? To the centre, Morecambe bay sounds as though it is a natural unit, but in fact it is a barrier. I suggest that we need to look at the fundamental geography, which might mean challenging the boundaries of the Morecambe Bay trust, if we are ever to get some balance between the demands of Furness, Kendal and Lancaster.

[John Woodcock]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, for which I am grateful. I am sure that Ministers will want to consider that, but I think it must not come at the expense of local MPs’ taking our eye off the ball in the forthcoming consultation.

The Minister was good enough to write to me about James Titcombe and other grieving families. In the first letter, he said that he would keep the issue under review. I hope that, when he has time to look at the matter further, the Minister will agree that the trust’s commitment to an independently chaired but internally managed inquiry, although it is a welcome step forward, will not be sufficient to give confidence and ensure that lessons are learned, not only in this individual hospital, but in the entire NHS. Most of all, I hope that he will join me today in sending a message, loud and clear, that the need to be accountable for past mistakes must never be used by the trust as an excuse to remove services that our community clearly needs.

The final part of my speech relates to the crisis caused by the trust’s shock decision to transfer, apparently temporarily, the special care baby unit and consultant maternity services out of Furness general to Royal Lancaster infirmary due to increased sickness absence levels at the trust.

Let me deal first with the shambolic process that has left expectant women unsure about where they can give birth—even now, as we speak, two hours after the transfer was due to take place—because of genuine fears about a lack of ambulance cover. The decision was taken unilaterally by the trust, with no consultation or warning given to the public, the obstetric consultants who work at Furness general, or the GPs responsible for commissioning the services. The option of transferring staff from the Royal Lancaster infirmary was not put to the board. Although there can be no doubt that staffing levels are low at Furness general, there was no detailed risk assessment of the dangers of transferring mums in labour by ambulance. Most alarmingly, no attempt was made to engage the North West ambulance service—this was confirmed to me by the service last night—until last Wednesday evening, leaving that organisation unable to find the extra unit that it estimates will be necessary to cope with the increased demand on an already stretched operation. This is an appalling and potentially dangerous shambles that has greatly increased the anxiety of pregnant women in my constituency, on top of the worry they already felt at the news, during what is naturally one of the most worrying times in their life anyway.

Will the Minister intervene personally to impose order on the chaos? Will he confirm that the regional health authority’s gold command is meeting today to escalate the situation? Will he meet me to ensure that we have the best chance of getting the services we need back as soon as possible? Let me be clear: families in my constituency and beyond will be devastated if we lose consultant-led maternity services permanently. The Minister is a practising obstetrician and will know better than I that the removal of the clinician-led special care baby unit will result in women who expect complicated deliveries or who experience complications during birth facing a transfer to Lancaster, involving a journey time of about one hour along a road that, less than a fortnight ago, became almost impassable due to heavy snow—in fact, journeys between Barrow and Lancaster were taking up to 10 hours. Trying to transfer a mother who needs consultant care in such conditions is hard to imagine.

It has been suggested that air ambulances could be used to speed up transfer times in the event of Furness general hospital’s maternity unit being downgraded, but serious questions need to be answered about the practicality of that proposal. The Great North air ambulance service is a fantastic organisation that helps to save many lives each year, but it has just three helicopters to cover not only Cumbria, but the whole of north-east England and North Yorkshire. We cannot simply assume that the answer lies in the air.

I am immensely proud to be backing the “Thousand Voices” campaign in my constituency, which comprises mums who got together to make themselves heard when they saw the crisis coming. I know that I cannot use props, Mr Howarth, so I will not, but I urge all hon. Members to go to www.YouTube.com/saveFGHmaternity to hear the stories being shared. People are going out and using camera phones to get video clips from mums and dads, wherever they can find them. Let me read just one such story on the site, which reflects the views of hundreds. Mum of three, Christina Pickering, said:

“Due to extreme circumstances in my third pregnancy, I was sent to the Royal Preston hospital to deliver my daughter and that’s got to be one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, being in an unknown hospital, on my own, to deliver my baby. I don’t want this to happen to any mums—it doesn’t have to. Downgrading our maternity services at Furness general would not only be detrimental to mums and babies, but to the whole community. We’ve got to stop this happening.”

Let me end with the Minister’s own words from before he was promoted, which I wholeheartedly endorse. In a Westminster Hall debate in September 2010, he said that,

“generally speaking, if we consider the example of”

other hospitals,

“we see that the push has been to have a low-risk, midwifery-led unit alongside a higher-risk unit. We in obstetrics know that a greater number of women—rising to about 30%—are giving birth by Caesarean section, and that number is going up year on year. Many births that we initially think uncomplicated end up being much more complicated.”—[Official Report, 14 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 230WH.]

The Minister summed it up perfectly. Families in Furness want the security of knowing that they can have their babies in Barrow with specialist help on hand. They pay for their health services with their taxes and they are speaking with one voice. They need the Government to listen.