Care Quality Commission (Morecambe Bay Hospitals)

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend speaks well. Even under the current system, when problems are identified they seem to fester without being properly addressed. Under the new single failure regime for hospitals, when failure is identified there will be a maximum period of one year to sort it out or the board’s trust will be suspended. There will be a cut-off which does not exist at present to make sure that the local NHS, the trust board and, in the end, even Ministers bite the bullet when there are problems so that we do not allow them to continue.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

After Francis, after the Health and Social Care Act 2012, are we not asking a deeply dysfunctional and damaged organisation to shoulder additional responsibilities? Is not that in itself risky? In the Secretary of State’s statement he mentions “potentially criminal prosecution” of providers. Exactly who will be prosecuted? Managers? Clinicians? Board members? And exactly on what charge?

[Mr Hunt]

The criminal sanctions apply to boards for withholding information about safety breaches at their trust, and as I mentioned earlier, we are considering whether those sanctions should apply below board level. We want to wait for Professor Berwick’s advice on that, because there is a balance between proper accountability for mistakes and the need to create that culture of openness, where people report mistakes that they might see a colleague making, which might not happen if they were worried about criminal prosecutions. I want to take the advice of an expert on that.