Maternity Services (Morecambe Bay)

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Eric Ollerenshaw

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

As a Member of Parliament for an area covered by the trust, I assure the Secretary of State that many thousands of workers in the NHS in my area do a really good job in very difficult geographical circumstances.

I was newly elected to Parliament in 2010. My experience, alongside that of colleagues whom I see in the House, as a constituency MP dealing with the huge institution that is the NHS has been that it is difficult to find out who is responsible, where and for what. Like everybody else, my heart goes out to the parents. I do not know how they have struggled on, with their loss and with being confronted with what almost seems like a professional or administrative closing of ranks and doors to their pleas for some information on what happened. It is just unbelievable.

My constituents do not understand why—this is mentioned in the report—a major incident in 2004 was not looked at. There were five more major incidents in 2006-07 and another five in 2008, yet still nothing was done. What will the Secretary of State do to reassure my constituents that when a major incident happens again—as presumably it could in any NHS hospital across the country—it will be acted on?

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to do that. In fact, I can not only tell my hon. Friend what we are going to do, I can tell him what we have done. The main purpose of the new CQC inspection regime, with a chief inspector of hospitals and a special measures regime, is to make sure that these issues come to light much more quickly. The new regime has been very active: 20 trusts—more than 10% of all trusts in the NHS—have gone into special measures. We have seen dramatic improvements.

I would like to make a broader point to my hon. Friend’s constituents. He speaks very wisely when he says that this is not about the dedication and commitment of front-line staff. He is absolutely right. The Royal Lancaster infirmary is not the main focus of the Kirkup report, but of course as part of the same trust it suffered from the same management failings. There are Members of this House who have had problems at the Royal Lancaster infirmary and found that they were not listened to when they made complaints, because proper management was not in place. That will have affected his constituents. I hope they will take encouragement from the changes that have happened recently in that regard.

Francis Report: Update and Response

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Eric Ollerenshaw

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

Following on from the question of the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) about Morecambe Bay trust, has the Secretary of State had a chance to look at yesterday’s “Better Care Together” future plans report by the trust, which finally puts to bed the wild allegations locally of hospital and A and E closures and also sets a road map for eliminating the pre-2010 deficit, provided we get some recognition of the difficult geography of our area?

[Mr Hunt]

I know geography is a big issue, and the driving distance between Morecambe bay and Lancaster is a big challenge for the trust. I will look closely at that report, and I think Members in all parts of this House would welcome a commitment to avoiding scaremongering about local hospital services in the run-up to the election.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Eric Ollerenshaw

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

There are huge pressures in the NHS. That is why we have put a record £700 million into the NHS to help it to get through this winter. May I gently suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should not try to politicise every single operational problem? When the NHS is all about politics, patients get forgotten—as he should know, because that is what happened when he was Health Secretary. Whether in Medway, Colchester, Burton or George Eliot, patients were forgotten because for Labour it was politics before patients every time.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

T6. Will the Secretary of State look again at the funding formula for hospital trusts so that some adjustment can be included to recognise the issues in trusts such as University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust which cover large and difficult geographical areas?

[Mr Hunt]

I recognise those issues, and I am very happy to take that suggestion away. I particularly want to put on the record that the scare stories put out by Labour in Lancaster about the potential closure of Royal Lancashire Infirmary are false. It is totally irresponsible to scare people in Lancaster in that way.

Special Measures Regime

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Eric Ollerenshaw

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Absolutely, and I think we have legislated to make that the case.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

With reference to University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, which has just gone into special measures, may I reassure the Secretary of State that the CQC has seen some improvements there delivered by front-line staff, particularly at Royal Lancaster infirmary? However, I want to underline what the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) said about the unique geographical problems facing a trust with four hospitals separated by hundreds of miles of sea, mountains and valleys.

[Mr Hunt]

I absolutely recognise that issue, which is something we will have to think about in terms of the long-term sustainability of the trust. Let me reassure my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness that the CQC chief inspector will not say that a trust can come out of special measures unless he can see a long-term sustainable future for that trust, so part of the purpose of the regime is to force everyone in the system to confront those issues so that we bite the bullet quickly.

Care Quality Commission (Morecambe Bay Hospitals)

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Eric Ollerenshaw

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I welcome much of what the right hon. Gentleman says, but let me say this: he talks about getting on with implementing the Francis report, and that is exactly what has been happening. The report came to the House on 6 February. A new chief inspector of hospitals was appointed by 31 May, and the new inspections will start towards the end of this year. That will mean that many of the things talked about in the Francis report as being fundamentally important will start to be looked at independently and rigorously for the very first time.

I can confirm that there will be a duty of candour in the new Care Bill. We are looking at the extent to which it should apply to individuals, but we want to wait until Professor Berwick produces his report, because it is important to create a culture of openness, and we do not want to pass a measure that might inadvertently mean people clam up when they see a potential safety breach. We need to encourage an atmosphere where everyone talks openly about any concerns they have.

David Prior will be looking in his response to today’s independent report at whether anyone still working in the NHS, or, indeed, the CQC, may have been responsible for some of the shocking things that have been revealed. He will pass that report to me within the next two months. As I said in my statement, there will be full consideration of any sanctions or appropriate disciplinary procedures. In our response to the Francis report, we have said we want to introduce a new barring scheme to make sure that managers who have been found guilty of behaving in a bad way do not get jobs in another part of the NHS.

With respect to what the right hon. Gentleman said about my colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), I gently say to him that it was not my right hon. Friend or myself or this Government’s Ministers who rejected 81 requests for a public inquiry into what happened at Mid Staffs. My right hon. Friend was the person who called the public inquiry into Mid Staffs. He is the person who changed the management of the CQC. He is the person who put clinicians in charge of budgets in the NHS, precisely to make sure these kinds of safety issues do not arise.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman talks about accountability. If the Opposition really wanted to give confidence that they take the issues raised today seriously, they would recognise that it was fundamentally wrong to set up an inspection regime that was not carried out by specialists, and where the same person was inspecting a dental clinic, a slimming clinic, a hospital or a GP practice, perhaps in the same month. That may have contributed to the CQC’s decision in 2009 not to investigate the maternity deaths at Morecambe Bay, and to its decision in April 2010 to register the hospital without conditions.

When it comes to accountability, the right hon. Gentleman needs to explain to the House why the former head of the CQC, Barbara Young, said in her evidence to the Francis inquiry:

“We were under more pressure…when Andy Burnham became minister, from the politics.”

Is it the case that the head of the CQC felt under pressure not to speak out about care issues?

On the substantive policy point, the right hon. Gentleman continues to criticise the appointment of a chief inspector of hospitals and continues to criticise me when I single out hospital management who coast when it comes to raising standards. Just how much evidence will it take for the right hon. Gentleman and the Labour party to realise that when it comes to NHS policies, they really need to change?

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

As Member of Parliament for Lancaster, which is covered by the Morecambe Bay trust, may I reassure the Secretary of State and the House in general that thousands of my constituents are receiving a good service from hundreds of hard-working NHS doctors and nurses at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary? Does he think the problems began with the setting up of the CQC on 1 April 2009, and its being appointed as an independent regulator and being expected by the previous Government to inspect and register 378 NHS trusts within 12 months, by April 2010, which was an impossible target for any system to cope with?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That regime was utterly flawed, and as far as we can tell, inspectors looking at hospitals and care homes had targets of inspections they had to complete in a way that was totally counter-productive to the concept of a rigorous, thorough, independent inspection where people speak out without fear or favour when they find problems.

I also thank my hon. Friend for the other point he makes: that the people who work at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust are working extremely hard and under great pressure. I think they are doing a very good job by and large, but there are clearly very severe problems with the trust that we need to get to the bottom of, and it is very important that we recognise that if we are going to create a safety culture in the NHS, we need to back the people on the front line. They did not go into the NHS to have to deal with these terrible breaches in health and safety; they went into the NHS because they care for people and they want to do the best for people at their most vulnerable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Eric Ollerenshaw

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the whole purpose of the programme is to ensure that fast broadband speeds are available to everyone. Indeed, it is the people in the most remote areas who stand to gain the most in terms of preventing villages from being depopulated and helping people who are disabled to get their shopping done. There are all sorts of very important benefits, and I hope that the £57 million that we have allocated to Wales, which has been more than matched by the Welsh Government, will make that happen in Monmouthshire and throughout Wales.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

Can the Minister confirm that when community-led schemes to bring superfast broadband to remote rural areas, such as Broadband for the Rural North in my constituency, initially raise their own funds, they will not then be discriminated against on access to future Government support?

[Mr Hunt]

We are specifically trying to set up a scheme so that, where people raise their own funds to solve broadband problems, it is possible to integrate that into the national network. Our objective is to enable as much local self-help work as possible, so I welcome my hon. Friend’s initiative and those taken by his constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

I am a Freeview subscriber, or customer, myself. We have put in place a comprehensive programme, but Ofcom is now consulting on whether it is adequate, and we will listen carefully to any advice we receive from it.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

T2. Following on from the questions about superfast broadband, I wonder whether my right hon. Friend would be prepared to meet the Broadband for the Rural North community group in my constituency or visit the Lancashire uplands, taste the air there and see what extra we can do to maintain the momentum of this vital project.

[Mr Hunt]

We would be delighted to provide support in any way we can, and certainly I or the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and his constituents.