Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jeremy Lefroy

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I agree. I welcome my hon. Friend’s huge support, both for Stafford and Cannock, throughout this process.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I know how hard he has worked and I echo the tribute of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley).

The impact on the Manor hospital in Walsall has been immense, as the hon. Gentleman said. We have already had to open 70 beds, as well as attempting to open two wards. The hospital desperately needs £40 million. I have raised this matter frequently with the Minister. I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman took that on board in his summing up and if the Minister looked at the Manor hospital—he has visited it, although I was not there when he did—to ensure that it gets the funds that it desperately needs, having taken the impact of the closure of accident and emergency at Stafford hospital.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I am grateful. I place on the record my thanks to all the staff at all the hospitals—Stafford, Cannock, Wolverhampton, Walsall and Stoke—for all they have done through this difficult time.

Let me turn to the detail of the services, which comprises the bulk of the trust special administrators’ report. We have come a long way from 11 months ago. Then, the contingency planning team recommended removing A and E and all acute services from Stafford, as well as elective surgery from Stafford and/or Cannock. We now have proposals that retain elective surgery at Cannock and, indeed, foresee increased activity there. At Stafford, we retain 14/7 A and E, together with acute medicine, elective and some less serious non-elective surgery, day-case surgery and a large out-patient department.

As a result of the consultation, the administrators proposed a midwife-led unit for maternity, when their original proposals removed all childbirth from Stafford. The estimate is that some 90% to 91% of all current patient attendances would remain at Stafford and Cannock.

Accountability and Transparency in the NHS

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jeremy Lefroy

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and to pay tribute to him for the dignified way in which he has represented his constituency during the Francis report.

I begin by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for securing this important debate. The NHS in England has a budget of £108 billion and employs 1.35 million people, with just under half of them clinically qualified, so it is right that accountability is at the centre of the NHS, for the people who work there, those who use it and those who fund it. I am sure that all my hon. Friends who have spoken and will be speaking in this debate do not see it as a chance to score political points or as background noise to denigrate an institution that was set up with the simple promise that is delivered every single day—that health care is free to everyone, irrespective of their ability to pay or of pre-existing conditions. It still operates as a service in which people are not judged on their illness but provided with a service.

I know that the debate is taking place against the background of the Francis report, but I wish to point hon. Members to a book that is about to come out—it is by Roger Taylor and called “God bless the NHS”. It was serialised in The Guardian last weekend. Roger Taylor says in the book:

“Paul Woodmansey was a senior doctor at Stafford throughout the period that things went wrong; He is mentioned by a number of patients for whom his department provided a haven of professional high quality care while standards in other wards collapsed.”

Let us not forget then that, even when a light is shone in a corner of the NHS where it is found to have failed the very people it was meant to help, there are areas of good practice.

Let us look at the background of this debate on accountability.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but I would like to point out that the same Dr Woodmansey has been appointed as the new medical director of the Mid Staffs trust Stafford hospital. I welcome that, for the reasons that she has articulated.