NHS Shared Business Services

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I will relook at the situation in that surgery to ensure that we are learning any lessons that need to be learned. However, this is a complex process. There have already been two clinical reviews in the vast majority of the high risk cases, and we want to have a third review to really establish whether there was any actual patient harm. That takes clinician time, which is one of the reasons why we have not been able to complete the process by today. It will take until Christmas to do that because we have to balance the other responsibilities that clinicians have in their daily work.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Earlier, the Secretary of State assured the House that the individual directors who are responsible for this catastrophe are no longer in a position to cause similar damage. Is he aware that the briefest of searches through Companies House records shows that the same three or four names associated with Shared Business Services come up time and again?

There are about a dozen companies, many of which come under the Sopra Steria Ltd group of companies, and most of which advertise the fact that they do a lot of work for the NHS right now. One is titled NHS Shared Employee Services Ltd, which suggests that, far from having been removed from any influence, the individual directors who were legally responsible for this disaster are still very much in a position to make money for themselves while presiding over similar disasters in the future.

[Mr Hunt]

I note the hon. Gentleman’s comments, but he will understand that I am not in a position to pass judgment at the Dispatch Box on the behaviour of individuals. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has respected and well-established systems in place to ensure that people who are not fit and proper to be company directors are not able to continue with their duties.