Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I reassure my hon. Friend that the trust has hired 257 more nurses since the problems emerged this year, has better A and E processes, and has been partnered with the Royal Free in London to help it make even more progress. He will be as shocked as I am that when the Care Quality Commission identified problems at that hospital the last Government sat on the report for six months. That cannot be acceptable.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

How can NHS patients and staff have any confidence in decisions about their local services when they are taken by the Competition Commission on the overriding grounds of what is best for a competitive market and not what is best for patients? Will he learn from the failure of the merger between the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and take merger off the table as an option for Rotherham hospital?

[Mr Hunt]

May I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that the competition authorities make their decisions based on what is in the best interests of patients and do not hold competition as an overriding ideology? He is right that we need to work closely with those authorities to ensure that they have the expertise to take decisions in the right way and with trusts to ensure that they have the expertise to ensure that they do not stumble when they go through those processes.