Patient Safety

Henry Smith Excerpts
Tuesday 24th June 2014

(9 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jeremy Hunt Portrait Mr Hunt
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We have ongoing discussions with the Ministry of Defence about the care and support that we offer to our combat troops, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we give them the highest priority.

Henry Smith Portrait Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
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I welcome the action taken by my right hon. Friend to extend transparency for the purpose of safety in the NHS, but could it be extended to the social care sector, especially in the light of the January 2010 Care Quality Commission report on Orchid View care home in Copthorne, near my constituency? The report rated the home as good, but 19 patients subsequently died.

Jeremy Hunt Portrait Mr Hunt
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I thank my hon. Friend for raising that very harrowing issue. I hope I can reassure him by saying that we are progressively extending the changes we introduced to hospital inspections to inspections of general practice and adult social care settings. The new inspection regime is designed to be much tougher when it comes to identifying problems. It is never possible to identify all abuse in an inspection, which is why what I have announced today is so important: it is about the creation of a culture that tries to prevent such problems from arising in the first place.