Ockenden Report

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. I assure her that constituents throughout Shropshire, Telford and the Wrekin, and indeed families across England, will be safer as a result of those brave families coming forward and this report.

On resources, the hon. Lady will have heard me talk about the £95 million given at the time of the interim report, plus the £127 million given for maternity services in the past few days. We will keep that under review.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his very welcome statement and the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), for her excellent work. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) for everything that he has done for patient safety; he has led the way, and I am so grateful.

Does the Secretary of State believe that what we have seen at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust is indicative of a culture in which senior management were unaccountable, no one felt responsible, failings were minimised, poor care was normalised and women’s voices were not heard? Will he do everything he can to increase the accountability of senior management across the NHS so that that institutional blindness can never again cause such harm to those who put their trust in the NHS?

[Sajid Javid]

Let me first thank my hon. Friend for her approach and her role in helping to make the report happen, and for the way in which she has worked with me, and with Ministers in my Department, on this most important of issues. She is right to talk about the importance of culture, especially given that, as the report makes clear, the voices of women were not heard time and again. I want to reassure her that we will implement all the report’s recommendations, but, more broadly, that women’s voices will be at the heart of the upcoming women’s health strategy.