Patient Safety

Steve Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Again, I am surprised that we do not have more agreement. If the hon. Lady looks at the figures, she will see that in the past year there have been 5,900 more nurses on our wards. Why does she not welcome that? We are using Salford Royal—a brilliant hospital that she knows well—to lead a safety campaign across the whole country to learn from the brilliant things that it is doing. I put a written statement before Parliament, and nothing I said this morning is not in the public domain. I would be delighted to come to the House any time to make an oral statement, and I notice that far more coalition MPs want to ask questions about safety and compassionate care than do Labour MPs.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will remember some of the issues that I raised in the House about patient safety, and the Francis report, the Keogh review, and the new Care Quality Commission regime have made a material improvement. On Friday last week, Buckingham Healthcare NHS Trust was the second trust to emerge—at last—from special measures. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating that trust, and express the hope that that marks a new beginning about which we can be optimistic?

[Mr Hunt]

I would be delighted to do that. Incredible hard work by doctors, nurses and health care assistants on the front line of my hon. Friend’s local hospital has meant that the trust has come out of special measures, which the whole House should celebrate. Indeed, it was helped in that by Salford Royal, and one of the most encouraging things about the new special measures regime is that we are pairing up hospitals in difficulty with other hospitals that have a better record, and we are getting tremendous results.