National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill
Debate between Joan Walley and Dan Poulter(10 years ago)
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Dr Poulter
In a moment I will address in a little more detail a couple of the points that were raised. I reassure my hon. Friend that the section 75 regulations that underpin the 2012 Act, which are almost identical to regulations that the previous Government were involved with, outline very clearly, under regulation 10, that integrated service, or encouraging co-operation between providers in the interests of patients should not be seen as anti-competitive. Regulation 15 makes it clear that Monitor cannot direct a commissioner to hold a competitive tender. There is strong support throughout those regulations, as there is throughout the 2012 Act, for integrated service delivery in the best interests of patients, where that is appropriate.
Dr Poulter
I am going to make some progress—I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me—because Mr Deputy Speaker is looking at me.
Francis Report
Debate between Joan Walley and Dan Poulter(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Joan Walley
I have listened carefully to the Minister’s response to the various contributions that have been made throughout the debate since 1.15 pm. I hope that he will respond to the points that I made about the current situation in Mid Staffordshire and north Staffordshire before he goes on to the generalities of the Francis report. Does he accept that it was a bombshell when we heard last Wednesday that the recommendations of the trust special administrator had not been accepted in full? We are in a state of limbo. Will he tell the House what is the state of play of arrangements in north Staffordshire and Stafford? We need to know that and cannot deal with the uncertainty.
Dr Poulter
Again, I will not deviate from the general theme of the debate and try your patience, Mr Deputy Speaker. The recommendation of the trust special administrator was that consultant-led services were to be transferred away from Stafford and that there would be a midwife-led unit for Stafford. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House are great proponents of midwife-led units and of increasing the choice that is available. The Secretary of State has made it clear that he accepts the TSA recommendations in full and that local commissioners will have to do a health economy review to assess whether capacity is available elsewhere, before services are moved in the way that was envisaged by the TSA. The Secretary of State has asked NHS England to work with local commissioners to identify whether consultant-led obstetrics could be safely sustained at Stafford hospital. That only happened last week. We will update the House in due course and perhaps statements will be made by NHS England.
Dr Poulter
I have given a very helpful reply to the hon. Lady, but I will give way once more.
Joan Walley
I say to the Minister and the Secretary of State that the use of the phrase “in due course” causes great concern. The new arrangements need to be in place in September 2014. Any delay to the acceptance in full of the recommendations in the TSA report will cause great uncertainty. The Government need to show that they are doing what the Francis report recommended and leading by example. Will they do that in the case of north Staffordshire and Mid-Staffordshire?
Dr Poulter
We are leading by example. As I outlined, the Secretary of State has accepted the TSA recommendation in full. A process is now under way involving NHS England and local commissioners. That was initiated last week. It is important that those conversations happen and that an update is brought forward in a timely manner. That is the right thing to do. It is not appropriate to rush decisions and processes because of a political agenda, rather than an agenda of benefiting the local patients and women concerned. I am concerned as a doctor and as a Minister that we must do the best thing by patients. Rushed decisions are not always the best thing for patients, because conversations need to happen between local commissioners and NHS England. I hope that the hon. Lady will be a little patient, because I am sure that the right decision will be made in due course.
There are three key areas in which the Government have taken forward the recommendations of the Francis inquiry: encouraging a culture of transparency and openness in the health care system; empowering front-line staff and encouraging good leadership in the NHS; and putting the patient at the heart of everything that the NHS does. As we have discussed, the patient was not at the heart of everything that was done at Mid Staffordshire for a period. That is why we have to learn the lessons and ensure, as best we can, that that cannot happen again.
On transparency and openness, it is important to highlight how we have already delivered on the recommendations of Robert Francis’s report. The CQC has appointed three chief inspectors for hospitals, social care and general practice who will ensure not only that the organisation is complying with the law, but that the culture of the organisation promotes the benefits of openness and transparency. Importantly, we now have clinically led inspections for the first time, which means that people who really understand what good care looks like will be in charge of the inspection process. That clinical leadership in the inspection process and at the heart of what the CQC does has to be of benefit to patients, and the Government are proud that we have delivered that.
We have also introduced a new statutory duty of candour on providers, which will come into force this year. It will ensure that patients are given the truth when things go wrong and that honesty and transparency are the norm in every organisation.
Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust
Debate between Joan Walley and Dan Poulter(10 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. It is also a great pleasure, as always, to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and, indeed, to all hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed to and supported this debate, which raises an important issue for patients and constituents, not just in my hon. Friend’s Stafford constituency, but across Staffordshire and the wider region.
It has been an incredibly difficult time for local patients and staff at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that the trust has come a very long way since the terrible events exposed by the inquiries and the Francis report last year. My hon. Friend has walked the journey every step of the way with his constituents and with the patients, and he should be congratulated and commended on his strong and superb advocacy of the needs of local patients, of all his constituents and of the families of those who were treated appallingly by the trust in the past. He should also be congratulated and commended on his strong advocacy for the improvements and the high-quality care that is now being delivered by parts of the trust today. I am sure we would all like to put on record our congratulations on his advocacy and on the work done by him and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who for many years has also been a strong champion of local patients.
In responding to some of the points that have been raised today, it is important to talk a little about the trust’s background to provide some context. The trust has been operating at a deficit for some time, and certainly since 2009. In April 2013, the trust reported a deficit of £14.7 million. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford alluded to, that position is expected to get considerably worse. As a proportion of the trust’s turnover, the deficit forecast for 2014 is higher than that of almost any other trust in the country. For the past two financial years, the trust received approximately £20 million a year in support from the Department of Health. Without that funding to supplement its income, Mid Staffs would have been unable to pay its staff.
The contingency planning team sent into Mid Staffs in late 2012 concluded that the trust was delivering services at a cost substantially higher than most other trusts in the country. A key challenge faced by the trust is the recruitment and retention of staff and the high cost of temporary staff, which is no wonder, given that it must have been a very demoralising time for those working in the trust when there have been ongoing investigations into events that took place in the past. Additionally, some of the trust’s services are operating with consultant numbers significantly below Royal College guidelines. The 2012 contingency planning team reported that, despite improvements in clinical services, the trust is unlikely to be able to achieve the required cost savings without adversely affecting the quality of care provided to patients.
On the reasons why the special administration process has been set up, it is important to take the initial report into account and to recognise that we are where we are today because of that report. In cases such as this, where a trust is facing substantial financial challenges, it is crucial that action is taken quickly to secure services for patients and ensure that high-quality patient care can still be delivered. The special administration process for foundation trusts offers a time-limited and transparent framework for resolving the problems of a significantly challenged trust. Like the regime for NHS trusts, the special administration process is intended to be used only in the most serious circumstances.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford is aware, Monitor made the decision to place Mid Staffs into special administration on the basis of the 2012 work. The CPT’s first report concluded that Mid Staffs is not financially or clinically sustainable in its current form and recommended the appointment of administrators as the best option for identifying the changes required in the years going forward to continue to secure high-quality patient care. Acknowledging the serious financial challenges facing the trust, the Secretary of State wrote to Monitor giving his support for the appointment of the trust special administrators.
It is worth touching briefly on the work of the trust special administrators at Mid Staffs. The TSAs have been in place since April last year, and they have had two tasks. First, they had to take over the day-to-day running of the trust. Secondly, they have had to work with the trust’s staff, commissioners, providers and other local stakeholders to develop a plan for services. The work undertaken by the TSAs builds on the earlier conclusions of the CPT and only strengthens the case for urgent change. If no action is taken, the TSAs estimate that Mid Staffs’ annual deficit will exceed £40 million in four years.
Joan Walley
I am conscious of the amount of time left to reply to the specific points made by the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and in interventions, so will the Minister ensure that the issues flagged up will be responded to in detail in this debate?
Dr Poulter
I will of course respond to those that I can, but as the hon. Lady will be aware and as I will set out later, the TSAs’ report is currently with Monitor—I would expect it to be recommended to the Secretary of State by the end of this month—so it would be inappropriate for me to comment on it at this stage. I hope she understands that it would be wrong for me to make assumptions about a report that has not yet been submitted to the Secretary of State.
Stafford Hospital
Debate between Joan Walley and Dan Poulter(11 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
It is a great pleasure to reply to the debate. Let me begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), and expressing my great admiration for the work that he has done so tirelessly during his time in the House. He has been a tremendous advocate for all his constituents, for the hard-working staff at the trust who are doing their best in very difficult circumstances, for all the people who have rightly spoken out about earlier problems at the trust, and for the patients. He is an example to us all of what a hard-working and dedicated constituency Member should be.
I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who has been raising this matter tirelessly for many years. It is a tribute to the efforts of both my hon. Friends that we have got to where we are today.
I can reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Stone that the findings of the Mid Staffordshire inquiry are at the forefront of the Government’s mind. As he will recall, our response to the Francis report set in train a number of important pieces of work. First, we asked Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of NHS England, to look into 14 hospitals where there had been two years of higher than standardised mortality ratio indicators. That work is now reaching fruition. Following a report as damning as the Francis report, which looked into the culture of the NHS, we thought it right to investigate other hospitals that could give rise to concern, and we now think it right to examine the findings of Sir Bruce Keogh’s report before we report back to the House. We also set in train Camilla Cavendish’s review of nursing and Don Berwick’s inquiry into a minimum-harm and no-harm culture in the NHS. All those inquiries have formed part of our response to the Francis inquiry, and they have all been independent of Government. We shall have the reports in the next few weeks, and we shall then be able to arrange the more considered debate on the Floor of the House for which my hon. Friend has rightly called.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford was right to highlight the fact that the health care challenges in more rural areas, where travelling distances are longer, are by definition different from the health care challenges in urban areas. He was also right to highlight the fact that, throughout the NHS, in Stafford and elsewhere, we face the challenge, in both human and financial terms, of better looking after an ageing population and better providing dignity in elderly care.
My hon. Friend was right to highlight the fact that we need to support people such as Julie Bailey, who was treated appallingly in the light of her great courage and conviction. We must support people inside and outside the NHS who have the courage to speak up when there are concerns. We have made that clear in our initial response to the Francis inquiry report. That is why we have set up a whistleblowing hotline and are tackling the cultural issues in the NHS. We will support staff who want to raise concerns, so they can do so free of fear and intimidation. That is absolutely the right thing to do.
It is admirable that local people have continued to come out in full support of their hospital through the Support Stafford Hospital campaign. That was demonstrated by the 50,000 people who marched through Stafford with my hon. Friend in April and by other local events such as the Night of Light event in May. I am sure that we all agree that it is vital that the trust special administrator, currently in place at the trust, develops the right proposals for the future of services at the hospital to provide high-quality, affordable and sustainable services. I will return to that later.
The NHS is about to celebrate its 65th anniversary and its 65th year has perhaps been its most challenging. In that year, we have perhaps questioned some of the things that we held dear. I work in the NHS, I believe in it and I believe that our NHS should be and is one of the very best health services in the world, but when things have gone so badly wrong it is right that we learn lessons from what has happened, that we ensure that we put them right and that we support staff when they raise concerns. It is right that we drill into how to ensure that we listen to staff in learning how to put things right in local hospitals. We must also ensure that we create a culture in which trust managers always listen to what front-line staff tell them. In my experience, when things go wrong in front-line patient care, it is often because there is a disconnect between management and front-line staff. That is why the Government, through the Health and Social Care Act 2012, are embedding in the NHS a culture of clinical leadership, which will benefit patients massively.
On the future of Stafford hospital and the issues raised in the debate, the events that took place led Monitor to intervene and, over the past few years, there has been a whole health economy approach to improving services at the trust. That has led us to where we are today. Monitor, as the regulator of foundation trusts, appointed a TSA at the trust in April 2013 to determine the future provision of services at the trust. As we know, that process is ongoing.
I should be clear that, while the TSA is developing its proposals, I cannot discuss that in much detail. Nor is it known what the TSA is likely to propose. It is right that that process is free of political interference. However, what I would expect, and I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree, is that the TSA fully engages with key stakeholders during that process, including clinical commissioning groups, local health care providers, local authorities and local MPs, which I have been assured is the case. The TSA is legally bound to consult on its proposals and I would expect that any proposals meet the four tests for any service change and reconfiguration, which were set by the former Secretary of State for Health, now the Leader of the House of Commons.
Joan Walley
Can the Minister assure me that, following publication of the report by the trust special administrator, as well as the people and communities in Stafford, the people and communities in North Staffordshire will be consulted? There are wider concerns about how any further collaboration will affect health care, which has to be improved in North Staffordshire as well as in Stafford.
Dr Poulter
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. As I highlighted earlier, it is absolutely right that the TSA will look at the whole health and care sector in Staffordshire, and of course the implications of any potential change for neighbouring hospitals. That is implicit in the work that the TSA is doing. This is, of course, not an issue I can dictate from the Dispatch Box or the Secretary of State determines. It is for the TSA to decide what its own work is, and it is important that that is done without political interference, so the right decision for local patients in Stafford and surrounding areas can be reached. I am sure the hon. Lady will agree about that.
I appreciate the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford that acute services should remain at Stafford hospital. However, the TSA is independent of Monitor and therefore it would not be appropriate for Monitor—or, indeed, Ministers or the Department of Health—to seek to influence this process. My hon. Friend is aware that, at the request of the TSA, Monitor granted an extension to the period in which it can develop its proposals and the consultation period. I understand that the TSA is expected to consult on its proposals between August and October 2013, and I am sure my hon. Friend and his constituents will play an active role in that, and that the views expressed in the House today will be listened to as a part of the deliberations of the TSA and in the consultation process that follows.
I appreciate my hon. Friend and his constituents will experience uncertainty while the TSA develops its proposals. However, the TSA is engaging widely with the broader health economy as these proposals are developed and I understand that includes speaking with my hon. Friend and the Stafford Hospital Working Group. I would, therefore, encourage my hon. Friend to continue this dialogue with the TSA to ensure that his views and those of his constituents are fully taken into account as proposals for the future of Stafford hospital emerge.
I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, because if it were not for their work, we would not be where we are today and the people of Stafford and Staffordshire would be much more poorly represented. Their record speaks for itself and they have our full support in the work they are doing as advocates for their constituents. I look forward to continuing to support them in my role as a Minister, and the Government stand ready to support Stafford hospital.
Question put and agreed to.