St George’s Hospital: Patient Deaths

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the coroner’s ruling on patient deaths at St George’s Hospital which found that deaths were “unnecessary” and the result of “inadequate” NHS-led investigations; and what steps they will take to prevent such failings in future.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and in so doing declare an interest as a member of the GMC.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

NHS England and Improvement will review the coroner’s prevention of future death reports and respond within the agreed timescales. The coroner’s investigations are ongoing. The Government are committed to improving the standard of investigations into serious patient safety incidents in the NHS to create a culture of learning from mistakes and to improve patient safety.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister. This is a serious issue. An independent review into cardiac surgery at St George’s Hospital found evidence of shortcomings and a number of avoidable deaths. This finding has been totally contradicted by the senior coroner for inner west London, who found the methodology used in the review completely flawed and said of a particular case that the coroner was dealing with that the doctor’s approach had been without reproach. Given the review that will now be undertaken, does the Minister accept that, if the coroner is right, the whole method used by the NHS for these reviews will come under question?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I understand the premise behind the assertion and the Question but, as I explained to the noble Lord yesterday, a number of issues are ongoing—the coroner’s inquest, an employment tribunal and a number of other reviews—which, sadly, I am not allowed to comment on. However, I can say at the moment that we are committed to improving the standard of patient safety investigations. We have set up the independent patient safety investigation service and HSSIB to look at this, as the noble Lord will know from the Bill, and we have a number of independent investigations guidance for standard operating procedures by NHS England and Improvement for teams to use.