Southern Cross Healthcare

Ian Mearns Excerpts
Thursday 16th June 2011

(13 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Paul Burstow Portrait Paul Burstow
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I understand the desire of all hon. Members for urgent action and a rapid resolution that secures the interests of residents, but I did not hear the hon. Lady suggest what those changes to regulation should be. When she cares to offer such suggestions, we can look at them.

Ian Mearns Portrait Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
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I am grateful for the Minister’s reassurances, but I am afraid that they ring a little hollow, because I was aware of a great many shortcomings in the level and quality of care in Southern Cross homes in Gateshead before its financial crisis became a matter of public record. It seems that the CQC is looking at homes on an individual basis, and that it is not drawing a national pattern of the rotten care ethos within the whole of that organisation. When will the Minister address this as a national problem?

Paul Burstow Portrait Paul Burstow
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I am doing that, and shall certainly make it my business to look up past correspondence from the hon. Gentleman raising those concerns, so that we ensure that they are properly addressed.