Adult Social Care Funding

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This is a hugely important subject and there is extensive interest. I would like to accommodate it all, but we do have another urgent question to follow, then business questions, and then a heavily subscribed debate. May I please now ask colleagues to be good enough to pose single sentence, pithy questions, and of course appeal to the Minister to provide comparably pithy replies?

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

We have an appalling case of abuse in a small private care home in my constituency that resulted in prison sentences for the two people involved. What is the Minister going to do to raise standards in small private care homes?

[Steve Brine]

I cannot comment on that individual case, but if the hon. Lady writes to me about it I will be more than happy to look into it and meet her.

NHS Shared Business Services

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We are paying GP surgeries for the extra admin time that this is taking. That is designed to ensure that, where necessary, they can buy in extra resources to deal with the extra admin. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we have to ensure that GPs’ core work is not compromised by the issue.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I used to work as a clinical scientist in the NHS, so I know only too well the harm that can be caused by the non-arrival of a test result. If a diagnostic test is performed and the result goes nowhere and is not seen by a clinician, as in this case, it is the same health outcome as if the test was not done at all. Will the Secretary of State stop trying to downplay the situation and own up to the seriousness of this scandal?

[Mr Hunt]

No one listening objectively could possibly say that I am, or that anyone on this side of the House is, downplaying this very serious situation. Since the issue came to light, we have instituted a review of 709,000 pieces of patient correspondence. We have identified the high-priority ones, of which there are 2,508. Two, and sometimes three, clinical tests have been done on all of them. No patient harm has been identified to date, but we are not complacent. We will continue the process until we have been through every single patient record with that thoroughness.

NHS Shared Business Services

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is a very big part of our transformation plans for the NHS. Where the NHS does well internationally is in out-of-hospital records; our GP records are among the best of any country’s. GPs have done a fantastic job over the past 15 years in keeping all their records electronically, and they provide a lifetime snapshot of a patient’s history. Where we are less good is in our hospital records, where one can still find paper records in widespread use. That is not just very, very expensive but—he is quite right—unsafe at times.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I used to work in a pathology lab, and it absolutely pains me to think of those results generated by the hard work of pathology staff languishing in a warehouse somewhere, unseen by anybody. If GPs do not get lab results, they will ring the laboratory and ask for them, so has the Secretary of State made any estimate of the time wasted in phone calls from GP surgeries to pathology labs?

[Mr Hunt]

I am sure that, regrettably, because of what happened extra work was created for GPs. However, because of GPs’ commitment to their patients, it appears that in the vast majority of cases patient harm was avoided. When results do not come through that a GP is expecting, the GP chases them to make sure that the right thing is done for patients—but of course, as the hon. Lady rightly says, at the cost of extra work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

7. What assessment he has made of the effect of changes to local authority social care budgets on demand for health services.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

15. What assessment he has made of the effect of changes to local authority social care budgets on the provision of adequate health and social care services.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)]

The relationship between health and social care budgets is complex. A recent study by the University of Kent has shown that, for every pound spent on care, hospital expenditure falls by between 30p and 35p. The hon. Lady will also be aware that there has been an increase in delayed transfers of care over the past two years, which has resulted in an increase in the number of unavailable hospital beds. Our best estimate of that increase is around 0.7% of total NHS bed capacity due to the increase in social care delays.

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[David Mowat]

I agree that budgets make a difference, which is why we are increasing spending by £7.6 billion over this Parliament, but so do leadership, grip and best practice. Some 50% of all delayed transfers that are due to social care delays occur in 24 local authorities. Many other local authorities have virtually no delays. I recently visited the IASH team—Integrated Access St Helens—in the hon. Lady’s own constituency, which, working with Whiston hospital, has achieved spectacular results and some of the best outcomes in the country. I am sure that she will want to join me in congratulating those responsible.

[Liz McInnes]

My local council of Rochdale has had to make cuts of £200 million in the past six years. It has a further £40 million of cuts to implement, which will pile the pressure on our social care budgets. The 2% precept will raise only £1.4 million, which is a drop in the ocean when our total adult social care budget is £80 million. With our hospitals reporting a 70% increase in delayed discharges, I call on the Minister to bring forward the better care fund scheduled for the end of this Parliament so that our social care services can cope now.

[David Mowat]

As a direct answer to the hon. Lady’s question on the improved better care fund, let me tell her that it will be allocated in such a way that the combination of the fund and the precept will address real need. That is what we will be doing during the remainder of this Parliament, starting from April. We spend more on adult social care in this country than Germany, Canada and Italy, but it is very important that we spend it well.

Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. We have a delicate path to tread in this debate. Over the past 10 years, there has undoubtedly been a scandalous failure of care within this NHS trust. It has been well documented; I will come to that in the middle of my comments. There has been a failure in the structure of the trust, a failure of management and, in individual cases, failure by clinicians, and people have suffered and died because of those failures.

That discussion and debate needs to be aired, while ensuring—this is the delicate balance—a solid and credible future for the hospitals in the trust, and particularly North Manchester general hospital in my constituency. The vast majority of clinicians, staff and employees in the trust are committed to the good care of patients, want the best for those patients and devote their careers and time to giving it to them. There is a delicate balance to be struck: I do not want any criticism of the trust to undermine morale further, but we have a responsibility to debate the issues. This is not about the present general debate on NHS cuts or the impact of the Health and Social Care Act 2012; it is specifically about the structures of the Pennine trust and some of its failures, and what we should do to secure its future.

Almost exactly 10 years ago, on 24 January 2006, I sponsored another debate on the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust; it can be found in Hansard at column 372WH. Shockingly, when I read that debate, I found that it covered almost exactly the same points that I believe we will discuss in this one. On the day of that debate, the front page of The Times highlighted misdiagnoses, with serious consequences, by the radiology teams at North Manchester general hospital, as well as at Trafford general hospital, which is not part of the Pennine trust. At the time, Professor George Alberti and Dr Joan Durose had written a report on the Pennine trust, which had been going for only three years, having been set up on 1 April 2002. The report found low staff morale, poor communications and poor administration, which is almost exactly what the Care Quality Commission’s current report found. The human resources director and medical director of the trust had already left, and after the 2006 debate, the chair and chief executive left.

We hoped for a better future and improvement through Professor Alberti’s 25 recommendations, but today we find that the chief executive of the trust has gone elsewhere and the current director of operations is on gardening leave. We are almost back where we were 10 years ago. In the meantime, there have been numerous warning signs that things have been going terribly wrong. One question on which I shall focus is why, even with all those red lights flashing all over the place for 10 years, with dire consequences for patients, the national organisation of the NHS and, more recently, the clinical commissioning groups did not notice them and sort out the situation.

The first strong warning sign that things were wrong came in a report from Channel 4’s “Dispatches” on 11 April 2011. “Dispatches” sent secret cameras into North Manchester and Royal Oldham hospitals in the Pennine trust, and found very poor care, amounting almost to low-level torture of some patients, who were shown not getting what they asked for. It was a terrible situation. At the time, I took up the case, and I am told that staff were disciplined.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the nurse who was dismissed as a result of “Dispatches” took her case to a tribunal, which instructed the trust to give her back her job?

[Graham Stringer]

I was not aware of that. There are obviously many technical details about the disciplinary situation of which I am not aware. However, I saw the programme, and the patients in that situation were undoubtedly treated appallingly. One cannot resile from what one sees directly.

[Liz McInnes]

I caution my hon. Friend against reading too much into the “Dispatches” programme. The tribunal overruled the trust. The reporters spent six months in the trust and managed to find two incidents, which they broadcast. When the case was heard by a tribunal, it ruled that the nurse in question should not have been dismissed.

[Graham Stringer]

As I just said to my hon. Friend, I will not go into the details, but I probably know more than she does about the situation from the patients’ side, because a relative was affected. I have no doubt that those patients were treated appallingly. I cannot comment on the details of personnel issues, but I can comment on the fact that patients have been badly treated. Given the technicalities of the situation and having watched the programme, I find it worrying that although one or two cases were found after six months, the nurses were re-employed.

After “Dispatches”, the CQC report found scandalous failings within the trust. It found that the safety and wellbeing of patients were inadequate, and that the trust’s responsiveness and effectiveness needed improving, but that the care of patients was good. That report was very worrying; the trust would have been put in special measures, if a new team had not already been put in place to deal with the situation.

As I say, the CQC report found that the care of patients was good, but within a very short time—and after excellent investigative work by Jennifer Williams of the Manchester Evening News and other journalists—an internal report on maternity care was made public, showing that the care provided by some individuals was very poor indeed.

It is worth reading out for the record an extract from that internal report, because we have now had a 13-year period of failure. It is also worth remarking that both that internal report and the CQC report relied on nothing but internal statements by the trust’s staff. A paragraph from the internal report really contradicts the CQC report, as it states:

“Staff attitude has been a feature of a significant number of incidents, from the most basic reports of staff relationship breakdowns, resulting in women and their families exposed to unacceptable situations, to an embedded culture of not responding to the needs of vulnerable women”.

The report went on to say of one woman that

“in one incident it is clear that the failure of the team to identify her increasing deterioration and hypoxia attributed her behaviour to mental health issues. Failure to respond to deterioration over a period of days resulted in her death from catastrophic haemorrhage.”

That means that, according to internal sources, the situation was actually worse than had been thought.

The report continued:

“A further example of staff attitude and culture has been experienced recently when a woman gave birth to her baby just before the legal age of viability (22 weeks and 6 days)…whilst no resuscitation would be offered to an infant of this gestation, compassionate care is essential. However, when the baby was born alive and went on to live for almost two hours, the staff members involved in the care did not find a quiet place to sit with her to nurse her as she died but instead placed her in a Moses basket and left her in the sluice room to die alone.”

That is inhuman treatment.

These failings are the failings of individuals, of management, who failed to sort things out, and of the structure of the Pennine trust itself. I could list a whole series of other cases. In fact, late last night I was contacted by constituents I know about another case. I do not know the details of that case, but my constituents wanted me to take it up, as they strongly believed that a misdiagnosis meant that proper therapeutic care had not been provided. So problems in the Pennine trust continue.

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[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I am an ex-employee of Pennine acute. I worked for Pennine acute and its predecessor trust from 1987 for 27 years before I was elected to this place. I come to this debate very much from the Pennine acute staff point of view and our experiences of working there.

We have always worked against a background of change. Ever since I started work in the NHS, I cannot remember a time when there was not a new scheme coming up. It was always couched in the same language and everything was going to be different under the latest proposals. That has been my experience of working for the NHS in a 33-year career. There was always a new scheme on the horizon that promised the earth. We would try to give it a go and work with the new system, but systems were never given time to bed in. Just as we were getting used to a different way of working, a new system would come along promising the earth and everything was going to be wonderful under the new system. We all wondered what was so wrong with the old system that we had been told would be so good and solve all our problems. That, in a nutshell, is my experience as a member of staff working in the NHS.

Listening to the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) and the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) was very interesting. They have been MPs in the area for a long time. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton said that Pennine acute was formed from four trusts that were jealous of each other, but I feel that is a misinterpretation. He was partially right in quoting Bill Egerton: the trust was formed because North Manchester general was worried about being swallowed up by Central Manchester. That was a fear shared by the staff as well, because none of the four hospitals that form the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust are teaching hospitals. There was a real concern among the staff that North Manchester general, a local hospital, might be swallowed up by teaching hospitals in central Manchester and disappear. Patients were also concerned that their local hospital would disappear. The trust treats a disadvantaged area, as has already been highlighted. The fact that life expectancy is low in that region is more to do with the quality of life rather than the standard of hospital care there.

Pennine acute was formed in 2002 from a merger of four existing trusts that I think merged to support each other. It was very much a banding together of four non-teaching hospitals that wanted to work together and make a success of Pennine acute. Obviously, any change is difficult, and the merger was a major change, but when Pennine was formed there was a real spirit to make it work. It was one of the biggest trusts in the country with 10,000 staff.

[Graham Stringer]

I am glad my hon. Friend agrees with me about the reason for the formation. Does she recall that within three years of the formation of the trust the consultants and the unions had an unprecedented vote of no confidence in the management? All the different hospital sites believed they were going to be closed at the expense of another site. Within three years the formation was not working.

[Liz McInnes]

I was coming to that point because my hon. Friend referred to the chief executive leaving. I inferred from his speech that that was as a result of a debate my hon. Friend had held in Parliament, but the chief executive left because the doctors had a vote of no confidence. The trade unions similarly expressed concern about the way in which the trust was being managed, but, as I recall, the trade unions did not have a vote of no confidence. Unless my memory is not serving me well, I do not recall the trade unions voting on that. I was heavily involved in the trade unions and I have no recollection of our having a vote of no confidence. That came purely from the doctors, who were concerned about the direction the trust was going in. It was as a result of that vote that Chris Appleby resigned from the trust. I was heavily involved in trade union activities as I was a workplace rep for Unite the union while I worked at the trust.

I want to highlight the issues involved in constant reorganisation and relocation. With the single hospital service proposal and with Healthier Together, we have two proposals running concurrently now, both of which seem to have different aims with different groups of hospitals working together. Healthier Together relies on the four Pennine acute hospitals working together and the single hospital service review, commissioned last year, proposes that North Manchester general should now work with Central Manchester and South Manchester. To add to the background of the constant confusion of reorganisations, we now have two different schemes that do not seek the same outcomes. I am sure everybody can understand how confusing and worrying such uncertainty is for the staff.

During the formation of Pennine acute, as a union rep I dealt with many staff who struggled with suddenly being told that their job was moving to another site and that they would be expected to relocate. Very little attention seemed to be paid to staff’s caring responsibilities. I dealt with several staff with disabilities, who had real issues about suddenly being told their job at North Manchester general no longer existed and that they were now expected to get themselves to Oldham at the same time in the morning, even though they had an extra six or seven miles to travel. There were real issues in dealing with staff and relocation in a sensitive manner. Such issues lead to uncertainty for staff and also make Pennine acute look an unattractive place to work.

In the meeting that we had with staff, they were very concerned about the maternity report that had been reported in the Manchester Evening News and the detrimental effect that it would have on staff who wanted to work there. At the meeting we heard from a representative from the Royal College of Midwives that a scheme had been put in place for improvements. The scheme is ongoing and midwives are now being recruited. There was an anomaly with the grade on which midwives were employed. They were being employed one band lower than they should have been, but that has been remedied. So there is an improvement plan in place and we need to be careful about extrapolating from dreadful incidents and saying that the whole of the trust is failing. I caution against that.

I have spoken about Healthier Together and the single hospital service running simultaneously, but seemingly both requiring different outcomes. The staff at Pennine are concerned about the single hospital service and the proposal that Central Manchester, South Manchester and Pennine acute should begin working together. Unfortunately, a lot of staff have been through it all before. They have been through the assurances that their jobs will be safe and that they will not have to move, but they have seen those promises eroded over time. Many are concerned about the prospect of having to journey right across central Manchester to go to work at Wythenshawe. That will be a lot of commuting for staff and they are very concerned about the proposal. The single hospital service review makes a virtue of staff being transferable—that is quoted in the document—and yet, at the moment, staff are being assured that they will not have to move.

On maternity care, the hon. Member for Bury North said that it is not a funding issue, but the appalling report on maternity services highlighted the lack of funding. In the past, there was a proposal to improve maternity services, called “Making It Better.” That was based on an annual birth rate of 3,500. The trust is now dealing with 10,000 births per year on the amount of funding that was settled on 3,500 births, so the funding issue obviously needs to be addressed.

The building stock at North Manchester is a real issue, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton already mentioned. In my understanding, it was never a workhouse and has always been a hospital, but it was built to serve the workhouse that was built next door. The state of the building stock was always the reason that Pennine acute could not get foundation trust status.

NHS and Social Care Funding

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Allin-Khan]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Caulfield]

I will not.

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[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Two days ago, the Health Secretary read out a statement in this Chamber on the crisis in our NHS. His answer to his Government’s failure to meet A&E waiting time targets is to downgrade those targets, rather than seeking to take any action to treat the malaise at the heart of our NHS.

The Health Secretary heaped praise on our hard-working and dedicated NHS staff—praise they richly deserve—but it will ring hollow with many of them. I speak from years of experience working in the NHS as a clinical scientist with staff of all grades, skills and experience. The simple truth is that NHS staff are demoralised, and, as I said two days ago, they continue to work with care and compassion in spite of, not because of, his action.

Since that statement, I have been inundated by NHS staff wanting to tell me their stories: of how the service they were once proud to work in is now in perpetual crisis; of the strain of wanting to do their best for their patients but being prevented from doing so because of short staffing, overcrowding, delayed discharges and underfunding; of the emails they get from Ministers demanding to know what they will do about the failure to meet targets; and of their listening to the same Ministers telling the public that the NHS does not have a problem.

Health managers are saying that we have a perfect storm of ageing patients who need more care just at the time when social care has been cut to the bone, leaving hospitals to pick up the pieces. An A&E doctor at Manchester royal infirmary told me:

“Crisis is the new normal”.

The doctor said that it has become usual to have 10 patients waiting in a corridor.

In my constituency of Heywood and Middleton, the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has just been the subject of a damning report revealing appalling neglect in maternity care that led to the avoidable deaths of mothers and babies. The trust had the most 12-hour A&E waits in October and the second most cancelled urgent operations in November. In December, it was forced to divert ambulances 14 times in total, one of the highest figures in the country.

Social care across Greater Manchester faces collapse. That is borne out by the delayed discharge figures for Greater Manchester, which doubled in the year to October. Greater Manchester asked for £200 million for social care in the autumn statement, but the issue was not even mentioned. Some see Greater Manchester’s devolved healthcare system as a solution, but even its chief officer, Jon Rouse, says that although devolution can help closer working it is not “magic dust”.

I remind the Health Secretary of the NHS constitution for England, which was updated in October 2015 and establishes the principles and values of the NHS in England. It sets out rights to which patients, the public and staff are entitled, and it sets out pledges that the NHS has committed to achieve. Enshrined in the constitution is the patient’s right to be cared for in a clean, safe, secure and suitable environment and their right to be protected from abuse and neglect—in other words, not to have to wait in an A&E corridor.

Patients and the public have the right to be involved in the planning of healthcare services, in changes to the way that healthcare services are provided and in decisions affecting the operation of those services. For NHS staff, one of the pledges is to engage staff in decisions that affect them and the services they provide, yet I see precious little evidence of staff, patients or the public having any input into the 44 STPs covering the regions of England, which appear to have been drawn up behind closed doors and are shrouded in secrecy. Their impact on healthcare in our regions could be huge, but where is the public involvement?

Patients are being failed on this Government’s watch and their rights to safe care are being neglected. All the Health Secretary has for NHS staff is the occasional flurry of warm words, yet the war he waged over the junior doctors’ contract showed his real attitude towards NHS staff. Nye Bevan said:

“no government that attempts to destroy the Health Service can hope to command the support of the British people.”

That is from Bevan’s book of essays “In place of Fear”. Sadly, the current Health Secretary has managed to achieve “replacing the fear”.

Mental Health and NHS Performance

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for her work on the all-party group. I am more than happy to meet Dr Colgate. The purpose of the refreshed suicide prevention strategy is to try to ensure that we adopt best practice throughout the country. Some areas of the country are doing a very good job in suicide prevention, particularly in co-opting the public so that they understand that they can make a difference, too, but I am happy to explore with the hon. Lady what more can be done.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State rightly pays tribute to NHS staff, but the reality is that many of our NHS workers are now at breaking point. They continue to perform their work with care and compassion in spite of, rather than because of, any action taken by the Health Secretary. It is now time for him to act. What commitment will he give to investing properly in NHS staff, and to reversing the process of the deskilling, demoralisation and downgrading of NHS staff that he and his Government have presided over since 2010?

[Mr Hunt]

With respect to the hon. Lady, who I know cares passionately about the NHS and often asks me questions about it, we now have 11,400 more doctors and 11,200 more nurses in the NHS than in 2010. We protected the NHS budget in 2010, when her party wanted to cut it, and we promised £5.5 billion more for the NHS than her party was prepared to promise at the most recent election. Her characterisation of this Government as not being prepared to back NHS staff is utterly absurd.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his role in championing Medway Maritime Hospital, which I visited earlier this autumn. The CQC is in the process of re-inspecting Medway and will publish its findings in the new year. I congratulate the trust on its improvements thus far that were highlighted by my hon. Friend, which include reducing its average length of stay on admission wards from 11 days to only 3 days.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

A recent damning report on maternity care from the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust care referred to appalling neglect that lead to the avoidable deaths of mothers and babies. The trust has implemented an improvement plan, but plans for maternity services under the Making It Better scheme were based on a predicted birth rate of 3,500 a year, and the reality is that the trust deals with 10,000 deliveries a year. What action will the Minister take to address that situation?

[Mr Dunne]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising some of the issues at the Pennine trust. We are well aware that it needs improvement, which is why we have buddied it up with the outstanding Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust next door. The Salford trust is led by Sir David Dalton and the Secretary of State referred to it earlier. I will take up the matter raised by the hon. Lady directly with Sir David.

CQC: NHS Deaths Review

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. I will have discussions with the Minister responsible for social care, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), about what we can do in the social care field. I am optimistic that we can do something, because if we make this part of the framework of the new CQC inspection regime—obviously, that has to happen with the consent of the CQC—we can create a very strong incentive for adult social care providers to do what we want and to follow what is happening in the NHS.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I, too, want to raise the issue of the appalling neglect in medical care at Pennine Acute. The report—the extremely damning report—only came to light following the persistence of Jennifer Williams, a journalist on the Manchester Evening News, and the bravery of a whistleblower at the trust. I know that the Secretary of State will do what he can to protect whistleblowers, but how will he enforce a no-blame culture and a culture of openness in a trust such as Pennine Acute that appears to have tried actively to suppress this extremely damning report?

[Mr Hunt]

There should be no hiding place for managers who neglect their legal responsibility, which is the duty of candour that we in this place passed into law in 2014. That is my first point. It is also important to be realistic about the ability to impose a culture on organisations by ministerial diktat, but we can achieve that because this is something that NHS staff want. In some ways, what is most worrying about Pennine is that Salford Royal, one of the best hospitals in the NHS, is virtually next door to it, but the transmission of learning at Salford Royal did not seem to penetrate even into a neighbouring hospital. That is why we must get much better at sharing learning between hospitals.

Social Care Funding

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

The number of beds available in the system right now is about the same as it was six years ago. There is an issue with managing the financial performance of significant care providers. One thing we brought in two years ago was a robust process, led by the CQC, to look at the financial performance of the biggest providers and to warn us of any issues that may arise. We are very keen on pursuing that and making sure that it happens.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

This is a national crisis that this Government have wilfully ignored for years. The Minister said in his opening statement that there is no issue that cannot be solved by throwing money at it. Is it not about time that he put his money where his mouth is?

[David Mowat]

The hon. Lady paraphrases what I said rather inaccurately. I said that money would help with any system, but the issues are about quality, leadership and best practice as well. All those things are within the ambit of my job, and that is what I am pursuing.