Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateJamie Stone
Main Page: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)Department Debates - View all Jamie Stone's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend is right to raise the issue. Local authorities, not Ministers in Whitehall, are best placed to take local spending decisions, but they must be accountable for their decisions. That is why we publish information at local authority level on smoking prevalence and quit numbers, so that local decision makers can be held to account. We also offer them expert support from Public Health England. I have a strong feeling that he will continue to hold those in Harrow to account.
I am happy to do that. I had a very good visit to Medway recently, and Lesley Dwyer and her team are doing a fantastic job there. They had real challenges to turn the trust around, but they succeeded, and the staff did amazingly well. However, the truth is that we still have far too high levels of avoidable harm across the NHS. I want us to be the safest in the world. That is why, in the next few months, we will see campaigns to improve maternity safety, to deal with medication error and to improve transparency when there are avoidable deaths.
The hon. Gentleman raises an issue that is of concern to many women up and down the country, and no one can fail to be moved by some of the horrendous injuries they experience. We now have 18 centres of specialist care that can treat those women. However, the advice we still receive is that, in some very narrow cases of stress incontinence, mesh remains the best possible treatment. The issue will be kept under review, and my noble Friend Lord O'Shaughnessy is due to meet the all-party group on surgical mesh implants to consider it in greater detail.