Business of the House

Greg Mulholland Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I was sorry to hear of the incident in the hon. Lady’s constituency. I will contact my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and see when she plans to respond to the consultation exercise. Of course, I understand the urgency of making progress.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

The recently published ombudsman’s report, which revealed a worryingly unacceptable level of neglect of older people in the NHS in 2009-10, shows that such problems continue. May we have a statement from a Department of Health Minister on what the Government are doing to tackle this serious issue?

[Sir George Young]

The whole House would have been dismayed by the 10 incidents, to which the health ombudsman referred in her recent report, showing neglect of elderly people. It would be wrong to generalise, because high-quality care is provided in much of the NHS, but the instances of poor discharge policy, poor end-of-life policy and poor nutrition policy were deeply worrying. I hope that some of the reforms in the Health and Social Care Bill will improve the position, not least through the creation of local healthwatch organisations to give patients more power to ensure that there is feedback, that complaints are heard and that local services are held properly to account.