William Mead: 111 Helpline

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is so much in this report, but we must not let some very important recommendation slip under the carpet, and that is one of them. We have a commitment to a paperless NHS, which involves the proper sharing of electronic medical records across the system. We have also instructed clinical commissioning groups to integrate the commissioning of out-of-hours care with the commissioning of their 111 services to ensure that those are joined up. It is a big IT project, and we are making progress. Two thirds of A&E departments can now access GP medical records, but she is absolutely right to say that it is a priority.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

Like others, I add my condolences to the family. It is hard to imagine anything worse for a family to face. Like many deaths in the NHS, it is always sad to look back and see that it was a catalogue of missed opportunities and errors. One thing I should like to pick up on is the fact that young children are very hard to assess. It is quite hard for a doctor to assess them when they are actually seeing them; they can be running round one minute and then keeling over half an hour later. It is particularly hard to pick up clues about their health over the phone. When NHS Direct services were started throughout the UK, they were based in local out-of-hours GP centres, which meant that the nurse could just pass the phone and say, “Can you come and chat, because I am not sure.” We had rules in our local one that if a young child was involved, they got a visit from our mobile service. Instead of such cases being put through call centres, I hope that the Secretary of State will agree in this review to have some dissemination back to a local system, so that these cases can be accelerated easily to a clinician.

[Mr Hunt]

I agree with the broad thrust of the hon. Lady’s remarks. Of course she speaks with the authority of an experienced clinician herself. In this case, the tragedy was that there was actually a doctor who spoke to the Mead family on the night before William died, and he did not spot the symptoms. It is not simply a question of access to a doctor, but ensuring that doctors have the training necessary. However, as she says, dealing with cases such as this can be very difficult. The doctor’s view on that occasion was that, because the child was sleeping peacefully, it was fine to leave him until morning when, tragically, it was too late. Other doctors would say that that is a mistake that could easily have been made by anyone, which is why the report is right to say that it is about not individual blame, but a better understanding of the risks of sepsis. She is right in what she says. As we are trying to join up the services that we offer to the public, it is a good principle to have one number that we dial when we need advice on a condition that is not life-threatening or a matter for a routine appointment with a GP, and 111 is an easy number to remember. However, we need to ensure that there is faster access to clinicians when that would count, and that those clinicians can see people’s medical records so that they can properly assess the situation.