NHS Risk Register

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

To see a sick baby survive in a specialist neo-natal unit is a joy; to lose a sick baby is a tragedy. Does the Secretary of State understand the concern expressed by Bliss, which represents the parents concerned, at more than 140 specialist nurses going, and at the risk and uncertainty inherent in the Government’s proposals? Will he agree to meet Bliss and me so that he can hear first hand the concerns of the parents?

[Mr Lansley]

I hope the hon. Gentleman knows that I attended Bliss receptions under the previous Government, at which it raised exactly the same issue.

[Jack Dromey]

So you have never met Bliss.

[Mr Lansley]

I have met Bliss—I just said so—and we discussed exactly those kind of issues. I would happily do so again.

The objective of the NHS—this is precisely what we have set out in our focus on outcomes—is to ensure that we seek a continuously improving quality of service for patients. I have many times been on specialist neo-natal intensive care units precisely to understand that. I remember having a long discussion just last year with the staff, including the neo-natal staff, at my local hospital, Addenbrooke’s, and hearing of the importance to them of recruiting an additional neo-natal nursing complement to ensure that they provide the right service. That is nothing to do with the Bill. It is about focusing in the service on delivering quality. That is why we are getting resources into the front line.

The third reason is that the publication of a risk register could take away directly or distract from policy development—the process that it is intended to support. Departmental officials and Ministers should work directly to deliver the policy rather than react to the risks associated with the development of policy before the policy has been agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Freer]

My hon. Friend has made a very good point. The issues that have been raised have nothing to do with the risk register. This is simply a new stick with which to beat the Government. No amount of amendment and no amount of rational argument will appease those who are simply philosophically opposed to reform of the NHS.

[Jack Dromey]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Freer]

I will give way later. I want to make a little progress first.

I do not believe that the Opposition’s call for publication is remotely to do with transparency. If it were, they would themselves have published risk registers in the past. The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) said earlier that the present was not the same as the past, and that the past had not involved major reorganisations. Let me refresh his memory. In 2008 and 2009, in London, there was a major reorganisation of hyper-acute stroke units and a major reorganisation of major trauma centres. When the clinicians and the public opposed that action, what did NHS London do? It did not make the risk register public; it did not make details of all the risks fully available so that we could make an informed judgment, as the Opposition are trying to persuade us to do. It simply rewrote the consultation results, and what did it say? “The consultation results from the people of Barnet were inconvenient, and we are therefore inserting a new chapter so that we can ignore the clinicians and the patients.” That is the track record of the Labour party.

The Opposition may come to regret—

[Mike Freer]

I said earlier that I would give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey).

[Jack Dromey]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. When he stood for election and went to the good people of Finchley and Golders Green—the doctors and the nurses in the constituency that he now represents—did he say to them, “Vote for me, and we will undertake a top-down reorganisation of the national health service”?