Special Measures Regime

Debate between Jack Straw and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend, as ever on health issues, makes an extremely important contribution. She is right that we drew a lot of inspiration from the Ofsted regime, which is clear, transparent and easy for the public to understand. She is right that snap inspections are importation. I reassure her that the CQC has the power to perform snap inspections. It has already used that power and will continue to do so.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that it is a tribute to the new leadership of Professor Eileen Fairhurst, the chair of the East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, the other senior clinicians and managers, and the vast majority of staff at the trust, who are of a high quality, that the trust has been able to turn around and get out of special measures? Does he also accept that, as Professor Sir Bruce Keogh makes clear—these are my words, not his—it is essential that the trust does not take its foot off the gas, but continues the process of change and, above all, cultural change in the way that patients are treated? Lastly, although the additional nurses are welcome, will he say something about the implications for the future funding of the trust?

[Mr Hunt]

The right hon. Gentleman makes some important points. I will start with the point that provides a broader lesson for the NHS. Not taking our foot off the gas is really important. This is the start of a very long journey. I said last year that it would take about three years to turn around a hospital where the wrong culture has become entrenched.

I pay tribute to the leadership at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust. The CQC report said that the staff on the front line now feel more supported, more empowered to take decisions and more able to raise concerns. If there is one thing that we have learned, it is that successful hospitals make it easy for their staff to speak out and support them in speaking out. The hospitals with problems are the ones where people feel bullied and intimidated when they speak out. I am delighted with the progress that has been made.

In respect of finances, this is a challenging time for finances across the NHS. I simply say that, as I am sure the leadership of the right hon. Gentleman’s trust recognise, the most expensive thing of all is delivering poor care. The most important way of saving money is ensuring that the care that is delivered is safe.

Hospital Mortality Rates

Debate between Jack Straw and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. Friend is right. Serious problems were identified in Buckinghamshire relating to out-of-hours care and also to dementia patients, who themselves often need help out of hours. I raised the difficult issue of the GP contract because, in order to solve such problems, we need more joined-up care in the community. The Chancellor has announced an additional £2.8 billion for joint commissioning arrangements between local authorities and health care bodies, and I think that the combination of those two measures will secure a vastly improved out-of-hours service for my right hon. Friend’s constituents.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I welcome the Keogh report and the action that the Secretary of State has announced, which, although it will be uncomfortable for my local health trust, I believe to be necessary. However, I hope that, on reflection, the right hon. Gentleman will realise that the comments that he has made demean his office. I sat in the Cabinet with my right hon. Friends the Members for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). I saw how anxious they were to root out inefficiency and failings, and to cover nothing up, and I think it inappropriate for the Secretary of State to suggest that he and his party have a monopoly when it comes to concern about the transparency and effectiveness of the health service.

Last Thursday, the Secretary of State commended Royal Blackburn hospital for its vascular services and accepted the excellence of many of its staff. While we are navigating through this difficult period, is it not crucially important for us to echo the Keogh report and point out that, overwhelmingly, hospitals in areas such as mine employ high-quality staff who require better leadership?

[Mr Hunt]

Improving leadership is vital throughout the NHS. All Governments must take responsibility for what happens on their watch, and I have taken responsibility today for those 14 hospitals and all their serious problems. The right hon. Gentleman should accept that between 2005 and 2010 his Government received 142 letters about his hospital which they did nothing about, and introduced a regulatory system that did not expose poor care and ensure that it was addressed.

Health Services (North-West)

Debate between Jack Straw and Jeremy Hunt

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I first ask the Secretary of State to respond to the issue raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) about the lack of notice of the statement? I have had good news for my constituency from the Secretary of State, but many of my colleagues have had bad news and it is genuinely discourteous for the House not to have been informed. This is not a market-sensitive issue, after all, and we could have been told yesterday or earlier.

Secondly, on the merits of the concentration of vascular services in Lancashire and Cumbria, may I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the decision that he has made, not least in respect of East Lancashire Hospitals Trust in Blackburn? This is an important vote of confidence in the excellence of the facilities in Blackburn at a time when many of the clinicians and others have been under great anxiety because they have been subject to the Keogh review. I think all my constituents recognise that sometimes they will have to travel, as mine have had to travel to Blackpool for many years, for very serious cardiovascular surgery. Provided the outcomes are much better where there is a concentration of resources, and assistance with travel is given in appropriate cases, I think my public and that across the north-west will accept these decisions.

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his wise words. If we level with the public about these difficult changes, they do understand that there are times when they get a better outcome even if they have to travel further. Perhaps the most dramatic example of that has been how trauma services have been centralised on fewer hospitals. Even after incidents as dramatic and dangerous as road traffic accidents, people are not necessarily taken to their nearest A and E. They are stabilised and then they are taken to an A and E that has the equipment that is necessary to give them the treatment that is most likely to save their lives. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that.

I absolutely followed and would always want to follow the procedures of the House with respect to advance notice of statements. The request for a statement went in only last night. The Speaker made his decision this morning. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) is here and I hope she is allowed to speak. I said to her on the phone this morning that I am willing to meet her separately to go through any concerns that she has. [Interruption.]

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Debate between Jack Straw and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his endorsement of what I was saying about press regulation. May I take him back to an important statement that he made a moment ago, when he said that none of the discussions that the Prime Minister had had about BSkyB were relevant because he himself—the Culture Secretary—was making the decision? Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that this is the first occasion in the course of a six-hour debate when there has been any admission that the Prime Minister had had any discussions whatsoever about BskyB? Would it not be for the House to judge whether those were relevant or not?

[Mr Hunt]

The Prime Minister has said over and over again that there were no inappropriate discussions.

Phone Hacking and the Media

Debate between Jack Straw and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I think that everyone will be reflecting on what has happened. In the last Parliament there were two Select Committee inquiries on the matter and two reports by the Information Commissioner stating that things were wrong and needed to be sorted out, but nothing happened. Let us hope that as a political class we are up to the challenge of sorting things out this time.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Extraordinarily, the Secretary of State has come to the House without any briefing whatsoever to give further and better particulars behind the Prime Minister’s statement on Friday that he had—very careful words—no “specific” knowledge that Mr Andy Coulson had appointed a known criminal to work at the News of the World. Given the absence of a briefing today, does the Secretary of State accept that it is his duty to go back to the Department and to Downing Street and insist that a full, detailed chronology of who informed whom—or failed to inform whom—by name and what they said is published by the close of play today?

[Mr Hunt]

I believe that the Prime Minister is a man of honour and integrity, and when he says that he had no knowledge of that particular episode, I believe him.