NHS Shared Business Services Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Louise Haigh
Main Page: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield Heeley)Department Debates - View all Louise Haigh's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right—that has been our primary concern. It needs to be our primary concern as we examine the lessons that need to be learned in both the setting and the monitoring of contracts with the private sector, which were clearly deficient in this case.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
The Secretary of State was responsible for the entirety of the contract, yet has come to the House to respond to the urgent question and told us that he does not know how the situation came to light to NHS England, and that he has no answers. Mr Speaker, do you think he should have been better prepared today? What assurances can he give us that he now has controls in place to monitor any future contracts?
Mr Hunt
The hon. Lady should have listened to the facts when I told her. When this came to light, more than 700,000 records were checked: 2,500 of the higher-risk ones are being checked by two clinicians—80% of them have already been checked. A huge amount of work has been done to clear up the situation. I completely agree with her that it was unacceptable that it happened in the first place, but I gently say to her that we are not the first Government to be let down by suppliers.