CQC: NHS Deaths Review

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Bob Blackman

Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. I will take away with me the question of what the legal responsibilities will be for people in adult social care settings. One thing the report highlights, which I had not particularly anticipated, was the problem that a number of people with learning disabilities are cared for in multiple settings, so if there is a tragedy, the place where the tragedy happens may not be the place responsible for what went wrong. Often, the person’s previous care provider never even finds out that that person has died. One thing that Sir Mike Richards talks about is making sure that all care providers are informed promptly when something happens, so that there can be a multi-institution examination of what went wrong.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the measures that he has announced. I have been supporting the family of a constituent who died unexpectedly in hospital, and they have suffered at every step along the way. There has been a wall of silence, the trust has refused to co-operate and the CQC has refused to investigate. Every step along the way, the family have been frustrated. That has been made even more important by the fact that the son of the deceased is a doctor in the NHS, and he knows that processes have been badly handled. All he wants is for the NHS to learn from its mistakes. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to say what he will do about the number of unexplained deaths that have occurred in the NHS over the past few years, and whether any of those cases can be examined by an appropriate authority?

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to look personally at the case that my hon. Friend talks about. I think he speaks for all patients and families who have suffered tragedies when he says that the only thing people want is for lessons to be learned. A more challenging issue is that staff sometimes do not feel empowered to speak out in such situations, and they worry about the consequences. A number of trusts have an outstanding learning culture that is really supportive of staff, but that is not the case everywhere. One of the big lessons from today is that we must work out how to spread that positive culture across the NHS.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Bob Blackman

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

We have tried to speed this up with the cancer drugs fund, which helped 84,000 people in the last Parliament, but we always keep the NICE procedures under review and I take on board what the hon. Gentleman says.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

We recently had an excellent debate in Westminster Hall on the Government’s tobacco control strategy. When will they publish the new strategy, which was promised for publication this summer?

Junior Doctors Contract

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Bob Blackman

Thursday 19th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I understand the concern. The short answer is that we need to increase the NHS workforce, which we are doing. We will see more doctors going into training during this Parliament, as indeed we did during the previous Parliament. More doctors in the workforce will be an important part of the solution.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It appears that at the start of the recent negotiations the payment for Saturday working was the main sticking point for the BMA, but now the issue of weekend pay has been resolved. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, now, the doctors who work extended hours over the weekend can get extra pay, and patients can get the seven-days-a-week NHS we all want?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is not just a safer deal for patients, but a system that is much fairer for doctors than the current one. We are giving a pay rise of between 10% and 11%, for which we say that people are expected to work one weekend day a month, but doctors who work more than that get more, and it goes up, so more weekends worked means more extra pay. I think that is one of the reasons why the BMA was prepared to sign up to the agreement: it values the people who give up the most weekends.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Bob Blackman

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be well aware that the business case for the rebuilding of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital has been dragging on within the NHS for more than six years. We now seem to have a decision for the Trust Development Authority to make. Will he put pressure on the TDA to approve this business case so that work can begin this summer?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

As my hon. Friend knows, I have done a shift as a porter in that hospital and seen for myself just how much it needs the extra investment to transform its facilities. I will happily look into the matter for him, and I am keen to see it progress as fast as possible.

Junior Doctors Contracts

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Bob Blackman

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I totally agree with that. That is why, since then, junior doctors’ hours have been reduced, and under the new contract we are reducing yet again the maximum hours that junior doctors can be asked to work. Every doctor should welcome the new agreement, but because, unfortunately, the BMA has not chosen to negotiate sensibly despite exhaustive efforts, we are left with the very difficult decision as to whether we proceed with our plans for a seven-day NHS or whether we give up. I think that elected Governments should never give up on manifesto promises.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Junior doctors went into medicine to save lives, not to place them at risk. Does my right hon. Friend agree that by striking, junior doctors are putting people at risk? Can he confirm what the position would be if he had allowed contracts to lapse, and what the effect would be on the national health service?

[Mr Hunt]

I agree that the strikes are putting patients at risk. I think that what my hon. Friend means by the second part of his question is: what would have happened if we had just allowed the current contracts to roll over? The answer is that we would not have made progress towards a safer seven-day NHS, which will be of enormous benefit to his constituents and mine.

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Bob Blackman

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am afraid that that probably does happen. We all, in all parts of the House, passionately believe in and support the NHS. It should never come down to lawyers. When there is a problem, we need a culture where the NHS is totally open and as keen as the families are themselves to understand what happened, whether it could be avoided, and what lessons can be learned. If nothing else, that is the big lesson that we need to make sure we act on as a result of today’s leaked report.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is clear from my right hon. Friend’s statement that there is a cultural problem in Southern Health and across the NHS. Does he agree that far too often NHS management and clinicians are far too defensive and end up arguing about the data rather than addressing the underlying causes, which would fix the problem in the first place?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is right. It is quite heartbreaking that when these things happen we seem to end up having an argument about methodology and statistics, and whether it is this many thousand or that many thousand, rather than looking at the underlying causes. We have to ask ourselves why people feel that they need to be defensive in these situations. We have to recognise that everyone is human, but, uniquely, doctors are in a profession where when they make mistakes, as we all do in our own worlds, people sometimes die. The result of that should not automatically be to say that the doctor was clinically negligent. Ninety-nine times out of 100, we should deduce from the mistake what can be learned to avoid it happening in future. Of course, where there is gross negligence, due process should take its course, but that is only on a minority of occasions. That is where things have gone wrong.

NHS Reform

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Bob Blackman

Thursday 16th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

A lot of the efficiency will come from seven-day working, and I do not agree with the hon. Lady that there will be a simple cost increase. The cost to a hospital of cranking down all its services on a Friday afternoon and then having to crank them up on a Monday morning is huge, and it is not efficient. Part of the savings will come from having more streamlined services that operate to a consistently high standard across the week.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Many of my constituents complain about the lack of availability of GP appointments at weekends and outside normal hours. The consequence of that is that people who are ill turn up at A&E, causing pressure on it. I know that my right hon. Friend is taking action on that, but what is he doing to ensure that we have proper seven-days-a-week working across the NHS in primary care as well as in hospitals?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the fact that our manifesto commitment was to a true seven-day service across hospitals and general practice. That is why, a few weeks ago, we announced in our new deal for general practice plans to recruit 5,000 GPs so that we can increase capacity and make sure that people can get routine appointments in the evenings and at weekends.