King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLucy Frazer
Main Page: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)Department Debates - View all Lucy Frazer's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(6 years, 8 months ago)
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The hon. Lady is right to identify pressures across the system, but it is also the case that when leaders change their position in a very short period of time and oversee a period of significant deterioration, the regulator has to take a view on whether those individuals are the right people to continue to lead that organisation. I think that that is what has happened in this case.
Does the Minister think it would have been possible for the trust to have improved, notwithstanding its financial position? I ask in the knowledge that Cambridge University Hospitals went from special measures to outstanding in care and good overall.
My hon. and learned Friend highlights the special measures regime. We have introduced a financial special measures regime and, during 2016-17, the trusts that went through that regime—King’s went in only yesterday—improved their financial performance by £100 million overall over the year. The short answer is yes. It is possible to manage improvement through this regime, and that is what NHS Improvement is there to do—to help trusts that get into financial difficulties to manage their way out of them.