Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the emergency department at North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust is able to guarantee patient safety; and if he will make a statement.

NHS England is the responsible organisation for emergency planning and resilience in London. As such, it has well-established contingency plans in place which take effect in the event of emergency departments (EDs) having to temporarily reduce their scope of operations in order to ensure the best standards of patient care, our central concern.

As the Rt. hon. Member is aware, following an unannounced inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) at North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust, the CQC issued a Warning Notice. The Warning Notice, published on 6 June 2016, requires the trust to significantly improve the treatment of patients attending its emergency department.

The CQC is responsible for assessing whether the Trust is providing the right standard of care and ensuring that improvement plans meet the level of improvement required.

NHS Improvement is working alongside NHS England and the local health and care system to ensure that the Trust has the resources it needs to ensure that patients receive safe, high quality care.

We are informed by NHS Improvement that, in order to address the poor performance at the Trust’s ED, it has devised a plan titled Safer, Faster, Better. This is a whole system programme with the primary objective of improving performance, patient experience and outcomes for patients.