NHS: Keogh Review

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I applaud that and we should all celebrate the success of outstanding hospitals—there are many in the health service—which have led the way in improving mortality rates over the past few years. The noble Baroness is quite right. Indeed, Sir Bruce suggests that those hospitals should now be asked to partner with some of the hospitals that are struggling in certain respects to show the way, whether that is on governance, on systems in A&E, on quality of surgical outcomes or whatever it happens to be. That is an appropriate idea, and we should undoubtedly ensure that it is taken forward. However, as the Statement itself reflects, the 14 hospitals that are under the microscope at the moment are not representative of the quality of care that the NHS delivers day in and day out, which is of a very high standard by any benchmark.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I accept what my noble friend has just said, but he will understand that there will be concern throughout the country at this very disturbing indictment—because that is what the report is. Will he talk to the new chief inspector to consider whether we can have a form of assessment of hospitals—the noble Lord, Lord Warner, effectively referred to this—so that patients throughout the country know whether their local hospital is graded as being excellent or not? Will he also ensure that there is a debate on the Floor of this House, as there will be on the Floor of the other House?

[Earl Howe]

I can certainly use my best endeavours through the usual channels with regard to my noble friend’s latter question. On his first point, he is absolutely right. That is what led us to believe that aggregate hospital ratings, provided that they are produced in a sophisticated and careful way, will be very informative to the general public and to patients in a local area, and to professional staff within the health service. The Healthcare Commission, of old, used to produce aggregate ratings. They fell into disuse and, I have to say, into some disrepute, because they were so broad brush as to be meaningless. When we asked the Nuffield Trust to look at this area, it told us very clearly that, as long as we adopted a nuanced and sophisticated approach so that what was assessed was not just a hospital trust or an individual hospital within that trust but rather the performance of individual medical teams and units within a hospital, we would provide useful information to the public. However, that information needs to be accessible.