King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust

Lucy Frazer Excerpts
Tuesday 12th December 2017

(6 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Philip Dunne Portrait Mr Dunne
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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.

Lucy Frazer Portrait Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
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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.

Philip Dunne Portrait Mr Dunne
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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.