Oral Answers to Questions

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I welcome what St George’s is doing, and I welcome all the people from the EU who are working in our NHS—in greater numbers than on the day of the referendum. They are welcome here, and I look forward to their working here long into the future.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

Each month I hold my memory cafés for those suffering with memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer’s, and their carers, families and friends. What support are the Government providing for those suffering with such memory loss conditions?

[Caroline Dinenage]

We remain absolutely committed to delivering the challenge under dementia 2020 and to making England the best country in the world for dementia care by 2020. As part of that, we are more than happy to do everything we can to support steps such as the memory cafés of which my hon. Friend speaks, which are such a valuable local community resource.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course. We value everybody who works in the NHS. I would love the hon. Lady to take up this individual case with me directly, and I am very happy to look into it.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

I have recently been contacted by a constituent who works as a paediatrician in a nearby hospital. Last Friday, tragically, a baby died in their ward. The cause of death is unknown. Owing to the lack of a coroner service at the weekend, the baby had to stay for three nights with breathing tubes fixed in. For the parents, these are the last memories of their child. What steps will the Minister be taking to guarantee that the seven days NHS requirement also applies to coroners and histopathologists?

[Matt Hancock]

My heart goes out to the parents of this child, my hon. Friend’s constituents, as I am sure it does from everybody in this House. Of course I will happily take up this individual case. But she raises the broader point, too. I am meeting the Justice Secretary on this topic to discuss what further we can do. It is technically a matter for the Ministry of Justice, but I understand entirely why we need to work together to make progress.

Infection Prevention and Control

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing a debate on a matter that is of great personal importance to me, as I lost my own father to MRSA that he caught in hospital.

In 2011 my dad, Clifford, went into hospital for a routine operation to drain fluid from his lungs. What should have been a 20-minute procedure turned out to be two and a half hours as trainee doctors practised on him. The whole event was a real catalogue of errors regarding cleanliness in the hospital. To begin with, the cleaners kept their mop buckets in the room where the procedure was done—it was not a sterile environment. Also, located in the adjacent rooms were patients infected with MRSA. So, the staff did the procedure next to rooms where people had MRSA. Also, a number of doctors and nurses came into my dad’s room and did not wash their hands. I saw some of the same nurses later, having cigarettes outside in their uniform. My hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) mentioned patients doing the same. One nurse came into my father’s room to administer some antibiotic cream that was to be placed in my father’s nose, and she used her bare hands and did not wash them afterwards.

The scale of the problem is vast. The World Health Organisation estimates that 50% to 70% of hospital-acquired infections are transmitted by hands, and that more than half are preventable through good hand hygiene. Yet, in the UK, a patient admitted into hospital has a 6.4% chance of contracting a hospital infection. In total, more than 300,000 patients are affected by hospital infections in the UK every year. There are 5,000 patients who, like my father, die from a hospital infection every year. That is 5,000 too many. For me personally, it meant that my wonderful dad, my hero, never got to meet my husband; my dad never got to walk me down the aisle at our wedding last year; and my beautiful baby son Clifford, who is named after my dad, never got to meet his amazing granddad. That is just my own personal story. There is an inadequacy in existing practice.

The Government have done a lot to move forward on hospital-acquired infections, and I know that the Secretary of State and the chief medical officer really do care about the issue, as I have had several meetings with them over the past three years and my all-party group on patient safety has worked closely with them. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) has also worked closely with me on this. The chief medical officer has done a great deal globally to lead the way in highlighting antimicrobial resistance.

However, it is important that this debate draws attention to the fact that the current system of hand hygiene monitoring in hospitals needs updating, and is inaccurate and outdated. There are better monitoring systems out there. The old system allows poor hand hygiene practice to spread, and can put patients’ lives at risk. The system currently in place is known as “direct observation”, and there are three fundamental flaws within it. First, many of the nurses currently performing direct observation audits on colleagues are not trained to perform such tasks. That means that audits are often incomplete, inconsistent and ineffective.

Secondly, direct observation artificially inflates reported compliance, owing to something called the Hawthorne effect. Naturally, staff wash their hands more frequently when they know they are being monitored. In 2015 I ran a hand cleanliness awareness campaign here in Parliament and 40 colleagues, cross-party, signed up to it. The Deb Group collaborated with me on my Handz campaign and I was astounded at the research that the group showed me. It has conducted peer-reviewed research that shows that the true levels of hand hygiene compliance are in fact between 18% and 40%, rather than the 90% to 100% typically recorded in UK hospitals. That means that direct observation as a means of monitoring artificially inflates reported compliance by as much as 50%. We cannot begin to address the problems of poor hand hygiene when our hand hygiene audits report figures of 90% to 100% compliance.

To increase hand hygiene standards in our hospitals, basic behavioural psychology dictates that we need accurate and timely feedback to drive behavioural changes. Yet direct observation audits are often only completed quarterly or, at best, monthly.

The Government have had a big focus on patient safety and there has been a renewed focus over the past five years, from initiatives to reduce prescribing errors to the commitment to halve gram-negative infections by 2020. If my right. hon. and hon. Friends will permit me, I must thank the Secretary of State for driving those initiatives and for his personal commitment in trying to make the NHS the safest healthcare system in the world.

Looking to the future, the Secretary of State said that the 10-year plan for the NHS must enable it to be “more teched up”, so my question to the Minister is: what role can and should technology play in raising standards of infection prevention in the NHS? Electronic hand hygiene monitoring offers the potential to improve health outcomes and save money at a time when health services are coming under increasing pressure. Improving hand hygiene requires behavioural changes that are reliant upon frequent, accurate and relevant feedback. In his review into NHS productivity, Lord Carter discussed the need to have,

“real-time monitoring and reporting at NHS leaders’ fingertips”.

Electronic monitoring can deliver real-time, accurate data to drive behavioural changes. There are currently pilots in electronic monitoring technology in two acute hospital trusts in England. The Care Quality Commission has noted the innovative practice to improve hand hygiene using technology as an area of “outstanding practice”. However, the technology is not new; it has been in use in the US for several years.

The UK has one of the safest healthcare systems in the world, but 5,000 patients a year dying from hospital infections is 5,000 too many. Does the Minister acknowledge that, to improve hand hygiene and reduce the number of infections in our hospitals, using direct observation as a means of monitoring hand hygiene is no longer appropriate or effective? Finally, does the Minister agree that using technology, if adopted in the right way, offers an excellent opportunity to improve patient safety and reduce the £l billion in associated costs of hospital infections?

Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) on his success in the private Members’ Bills ballot, which is no mean achievement, and on choosing this most important topic. I have always supported an opt-out system, as opposed to an opt-in system. What I will talk about today has not resulted in my decision that an opt-out system is right, but it has amplified the importance of my decision.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who has done so much good campaigning on this issue. I also pay tribute to the Daily Mirror, which has already been mentioned, for its campaign, and to the Prime Minister and the Government for their statement this week in support of the campaign—that is very important.

Today I will talk about my family’s story. I rarely talk about my family in public, because it is me, not them, who entered public life. There is nothing special or unusual about my family, and what has happened to us over the past 18 months could happen to anyone. Young or old, rich or poor, there is no differentiation when such things happen, and they highlight the reality of the need to change the law to deemed consent.

I have four grown-up children, all now either married or with long-term partners, and five wonderful grandchildren. We are a very close family, and I am lucky that we all live within two miles of each other in Sunderland—when I am not down here. My eldest daughter, Rebecca, is now 36. She is married and has a six-year-old daughter, and she was referred to the renal unit of the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle after routine blood tests showed a problem with her kidney function. That was in October 2016, so not that long ago.

After Rebecca spent a week or so in hospital, it became clear that she was quite ill with significantly reduced kidney function that could at some point lead to her needing a transplant. That was where we thought we were, which was a big enough shock in itself, but the medical team at the Freeman thought that they could stabilise her condition.

Rebecca had been reasonably okay until that point. She had had a few issues health-wise, but she was okay, so the diagnosis of chronic kidney disease came as a huge shock to her, to me and to our family and friends. To face the reality of the fragility of life is very hard at any time, but facing it for one of my children, although she is an adult, is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

My daughter had until recently been a healthy, happy young woman. She was quite a serious runner in her spare time, and she regularly ran half-marathons and, occasionally, marathons. In fact, in the weeks before she took ill in October 2016, she had gained a place at the 2017 London marathon—she did not run it, obviously. It is impossible to describe the shock of someone like that suddenly becoming so ill. I have to say that she did not get her fitness drive from her mother, who goes to watch her run but does not run herself.

Sadly, Rebecca’s condition deteriorated very quickly, and in June 2017 she had surgery to enable her to start dialysis. One of the few positive parts of the general election campaign for me was that I was at home for six weeks, so during the time when her health was deteriorating rapidly I was able to drop everything and get to the hospital quickly. It is a lot harder to do that when I am 300 miles away.

Rebecca started dialysis last July, and I want to talk a little about the daily reality of her life. In the two or three months leading up to her having surgery she became increasingly unwell, to a point where, daily during those last few weeks, she was just lying on the sofa after she got up and she was not eating particularly well, if at all. She had the odd slice of toast or bowl of cereal. One thing that happens when people have kidney failure is that they feel very sick and generally unwell, with no energy. She could not really walk to the end of the street and she certainly could not take part in all the things that her daughter did on a day-to-day basis.

When dialysis was first mentioned to us, it was a terrifying prospect, but its arrival has given Rebecca a quality of life again. She does PD—peritoneal dialysis. She has a machine at home and links on to it every night, and for eight hours her body dialyses on it. That means that she has got some quality of life back. She is back at work, but she does have restrictions. She has to have a restricted diet, which for her means no coffee, chocolate or cheese—three things she loves. She gets two of those from her mother, but I am a tea drinker, not a coffee drinker. She is here and she is alive. Whenever she has a bad day—she does have bad days emotionally, because this is a difficult thing to be dealing with—and she says, “I am sick of this dialysis”, I say, “Just think: what’s the alternative, Rebecca?” That quickly focuses the mind and she picks herself up.

As a family, and with close friends, we have all rallied round to support Rebecca and each other through this challenging time.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

My heart goes out to the hon. Lady for what she has been going through, and I am sure everyone in the House today would say the same. She mentioned dialysis, and I am going to mention a constituent of mine, a very young girl. This Facebook post hits home:

“Today 1,608 days with total kidney failure. Today 19,296 Hours spent on Dialysis. Today waiting for the precious call, a match has been found.”

Does the hon. Lady agree that when we think of such children, and people like her daughter, it is very hard not to support the Bill today?

[Julie Elliott]

Absolutely. As I have said, this sort of illness strikes indiscriminately, and when we attend appointments—I attend just about every appointment with Rebecca—we see everyone from very young people through to older people; we see people from all walks of life. It is heartbreaking seeing people with this sort of illness. Every one of those people has a family, has a story and has loved ones, and it is very difficult.

I want to talk a little about the impact of this kind of illness on the wider family. As Rebecca’s health rapidly deteriorated, she had to be off work sick quite a lot. She has had some considerable time off sick. Even though she is now back at work, she still gets days when, as happened this week, she is not very well in the middle of the day and has to come home. Dialysis does not mean that someone is fit, well, healthy and leading an absolutely normal life. She has been very lucky, as her employers, True Solicitors of Newcastle, have been an amazing support to her. They have done everything they can to help her. They have done fundraisers for kidney charities—I am thinking particularly of her colleagues Kay and Lindsey. If I am trying to get to the hospital from wherever I am when Rebecca suddenly takes ill, they will take her to hospital from work and sit with her until one of the family can get there. I want to thank them publicly, because many people in this situation are not so lucky and face losing their jobs, with all the hardships and problems that creates. So it is important to say thank you to people who have been fantastic.

Next I want to mention the renal unit at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. Not only is that a world-class unit, but it has some of the most amazing and dedicated staff I have ever come across. From the time someone walks through the door at the out-patients unit, the receptionist, Ann, is always smiling, always welcoming and always looking after them, and the same is true of everyone right through to the most senior doctors. We have seen a lot of different doctors as this illness has progressed. The whole team are amazing, particularly the PD nurses who are looking after Rebecca’s dialysis. They look after Rebecca, but they also look after her family and they have got to know us all, because we have all been there with her at different stages. They are the essence of everything that is great about our health service. They are working under enormous pressures on their time and resources, but they always have time for us. I want to say a personal thank you to them.

I know that this is not a political debate as such, but I am a politician, so I hope Members will give me a moment’s licence. I am going to say that I think the health service staff need a pay rise and the NHS needs more investment, because they are such amazing people and they literally make the difference every day between people living and dying.

The impact on our family has been huge. You go through a period of shock, disbelief and anger as to, “Why Rebecca?” More than one doctor has said to us through that period that it should not be happening to her, as she has been a fit, healthy young woman who has done everything right in looking after her health. They cannot find the reason this has happened. The emotions and journey you go through are like a rollercoaster, because we have to deal not just with the direct impact of what is happening medically to Rebecca, but with the emotional impact of seeing that what is happening to her might mean that my daughter might not be there when I am still here. That is not something any parent ever wants to consider. Although all my children are grown up, they are having to deal with seeing their mother coping less than I normally do. I am a fairly strident, coping kind of woman normally. All of them are dealing with the idea that their sister might not be here. That is all very, very difficult. So we have rallied round and all supported each other, and we remain very positive. Rebecca is very lucky that she has a brother and sisters, my sister, her husband and a great mother-in-law, who have all played their role in supporting this journey we are on, and continue to do so.

It is very difficult being on call for a phone call. My phone is with me all the time. It is very difficult working 300 miles away when you are in this situation. As we all know, we sometimes travel out of this country in this job, so whenever I travel out of the country on business with Parliament, I have a plan of how I am going to get back. It is important to thank colleagues in this place, from all parts of the House, who have given me a huge amount of support. The Whips have been fantastic; they have basically said, “Just go. Text us and tell us you’ve gone.” There is a slight personal thing in that as well, because our Deputy Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell), has known Rebecca since she was a child. As many Members will know, I was his agent in 1997 when he got elected to this place, and Rebecca, being my daughter, ran one of the committee rooms. The support has been really lovely. A lot of the time in this place the differences that we have are highlighted, but at the end of the day we are all people trying to do the best for our constituents and we all care about people.

For me, as a mother, my natural instinct has always been to make things better for my children—that is what we all do. Rebecca is always going to be the baby I gave birth to 36 years ago; you love that child instantly and unconditionally, and that never changes. It is terrible to be in a situation where I cannot fix something that has gone terribly wrong. But what I can do, from the privileged position I have of being a Member of this place, is raise awareness and campaign for a change in the law, to that of deemed consent. The change in the law needs to come, and I want to touch on the investment that needs to happen on the back of that change—this has been alluded to in a number of contributions today.

This issue needs to be discussed in schools and among families, so that transplantation becomes a normal part of the conversation of life. We also need investment in the health service to support what I believe will be an increase in the number of available donor organs.

NHS Winter Crisis

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

It is good to be back after using the NHS’s maternity services.

I am proud of our NHS, and I am tired of Opposition Members talking it down. Our healthcare system is one of the best in the world, and while there is more to do, we should continue to improve our NHS with excitement for the opportunities ahead. We need to be honest about our current situation. We have an ageing and expanding population, and other strong-performing healthcare systems around the globe are facing the same pressures as we are. As a member of the all-party parliamentary group on Taiwan, I was fortunate to see at first hand the excellent healthcare provision over there, yet Taiwan’s own Ministers shared with the delegation the fact that they are facing the same pressures as we are.

It is a wonderful thing that we are living longer. It is a credit to advances in medicine and evidence of the effectiveness of this Government’s care policies and the strong performance of our NHS. This Government began preparations for winter pressures earlier than ever before. They drew up plans to free up 2,000 to 3,000 beds, extended the flu vaccine programme and provided help to GPs to extend working hours. In my own area, the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust each received an extra £3.4 million for their winter preparations. As the director of acute care at NHS England has stated, the NHS is better prepared for winter than ever before. Furthermore, from 2015, the Government continued to increase investment in the NHS, from £101 billion in 2015 to £120 billion by 2020. It is simply false for the Opposition to claim that the health budget has been cut since 2010.

But this is not always about how money is invested; it is also about how it is used. During my university studies, in a dissertation focusing on economic and healthcare policy, I looked at investment per capita compared with healthcare outcome. There is a lot of waste in the NHS, but the Government’s strong record on tackling it has put us in a better position than ever before to tackle winter pressures. Cutting the use of expensive agency staff, the positive impact of NHS self-driven improvements and the consolidation of services are only some of the examples of areas in which excellent progress has been made in order to deliver better value for money for the taxpayer, to deliver results in the light of our ageing and expanding population, and to prepare us better for winter.

Having sat on the Health Committee, I am fully aware that there is still more to do, but I am strongly encouraged by the Government’s actions and those of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate him on his additional responsibilities. Integrating health and social care makes sense, and it will only serve to better prepare the NHS for winter. I wish him much success with the important task ahead. I know that this is an area he is passionate about. GP working days and a seven-day NHS are only some of the areas in which work has begun, and this will ensure that the winter preparations get better and better. I join my right hon. Friend in urging those on the Opposition Benches to look at their own record in Labour-run Wales.

During the winter months of last year, I myself required the care and help of the NHS on a number of occasions. During my pregnancy I developed a temporary heart condition, and I have to say that the care was absolutely excellent. The Government’s investment in mental health provision for people having babies is also excellent. The NHS also saved my husband’s life when he had stage 4 cancer. I commend the Government for their work, and I wish my right hon. Friend every success in his new role.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Blackwood]

We are working hard on that exact point.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

20. As the Health Secretary is aware, my constituent Abi Longfellow is suffering with a rare kidney condition—dense deposit disease. What plans do the Government have to increase access to specialist drugs for those such as Abi with ultra-rare diseases?

[Nicola Blackwood]

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and NHS England are working together to better manage access to new drugs and medical technologies for rare diseases. We are also working on the UK strategy for rare diseases and its implementation. It has 51 commitments to be implemented by 2020 to improve the lives of constituents such as my hon. Friend’s.

NHS and Social Care Funding

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

I begin by objecting to the exaggerated language used over the weekend by Mike Adamson, the chief executive of the British Red Cross. What he said does a huge disservice to our hard-working healthcare professionals in the NHS. Such language was ill-thought-out, sloppy and irresponsible. The Red Cross does some fantastic work, as I am sure both sides of the House agree, but as a registered charity it is legally obliged to be apolitical. If Mike Adamson cannot remain neutral, I suggest that he examines his position carefully.

As a member of the Health Committee and chair and co-founder of the patient safety all-party group, healthcare is extremely important to me, and I am proud to be a Conservative Member of Parliament under this Government. It is thanks to this Government and this Health Secretary that NHS funding is at record levels.

The Government are committed to delivering a seven-day NHS and to expanding access to GP surgeries and hospital-based consultants at evenings and weekends. This winter, the NHS has made more extensive preparations than ever before. As the Secretary of State mentioned earlier, in the run-up to the winter period, there were over 1,600 more doctors and 3,000 more nurses than just a year ago. That is a record of which to be proud, and it would not have been achieved had we had the Opposition party running our national health service.

As chair of the patient safety APPG, I am pleased to say that the Government have introduced a new Ofsted-style inspection regime for the Care Quality Commission to improve patient safety. Hospital infections have been halved since 2010, with the level of MRSA down by virtually 50% and clostridium difficile by more than 50%. It is this Health Secretary who has taken the lead on this issue and put patients at the heart of the NHS.

Record numbers of people are being treated in our NHS and there are pressures on the service, but it is not this Conservative Government who are a threat to the NHS. If we look at the appalling situation of the NHS in Labour-controlled Wales, we will see that funding is being cut. As the latest statistics show, the NHS in Wales is failing to meet the four-hour A&E targets by a wide margin. It is clear to see who is rarely the defender of our national health service and who would cut investment.

In conclusion, it is this Government who are increasing spending on our NHS, who are focusing on improving patient safety and who are dedicated to providing the best possible service.

Mental Health and NHS Performance

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In wishing the hon. Members for Morley and Outwood and for Filton and Bradley Stoke all the best in the weeks and months ahead, I call Andrea Jenkyns.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. First, I echo some of the points made by the Secretary of State regarding mental health support for expectant mothers. As one myself, I have to say that the midwives have been fantastic. Right from the very first appointments at grassroots level, they mention mental health, so we are feeling the support on the ground.

I welcome today’s statement, which shows the Government’s commitment to mental health by making it a centrepiece of the agenda. One in 50 young people in Yorkshire receive care for mental health. How will the new approach address the concerns of the young people and their parents, and what measures are in place to reduce the waiting list for child and adolescent mental health services?

[Mr Hunt]

I add to Mr Speaker’s comments my very good wishes and confidence that my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) will get superb care from the NHS. I thank her for campaigning on patient safety. I am sure she will be pleased to hear that our principal safety campaign this year is on maternity safety.

In bald numbers, the plan will mean that we will treat 1 million more people with mental health conditions a year by the end of this Parliament. Of course, many of those will be in Yorkshire. An additional 70,000 young people will get treatment every single year and I hope that will bring down the CAMHS waiting times. We also want to do work in schools to prevent people from getting on the CAMHS waiting list in the first place.

CQC: NHS Deaths Review

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the shadow Health Secretary for the constructive nature of his comments. He is absolutely right in that, because this issue can unite people in all parts of the House. In fairness, these tragedies happen when those on either side of the House are responsible for the NHS, and we all have a responsibility to work to do better than we are doing at the moment.

I particularly agree with the hon. Gentleman that front-line doctors and nurses work incredibly hard, and we need to get away from a blame culture when these tragedies happen. That blame culture is the root cause of why we are not learning as we should from the problems that arise, because people are worried about what will happen to them personally if they speak out. We have seen this with a number of tragedies. Through the national framework, we are trying to move away from a blame culture. Of course people have to be held accountable. If there is gross negligence and people do totally irresponsible things, then there must be no hiding place and proper accountability: that is what families rightly insist on. For the vast majority of the time, however, people are just trying to do their jobs as best they can. As he rightly says, it is often a systemic problem that can be solved with systemic changes. We are now trying to implement the culture of investigation that has worked so successfully in the airline industry and other industries.

I absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman that families and carers will be equal partners as we develop the new national guidance. This area was one of the most shocking things about the CQC report. I am sure that it was a great surprise to many people in the NHS how excluded many families felt. We clearly have to do better in that respect.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the National Patient Safety Agency, and I pay credit to Sir Liam Donaldson, who was chief medical officer under the previous Labour Government and a great champion of patient safety, but we now have different structures in place. The new CQC inspection regime and the healthcare safety investigation branch are giving equal, if not greater, priority to patient safety.

We discuss on many occasions the funding issues that the hon. Gentleman raised, as I think he is acknowledging with his facial expressions. The point I would make, because we have had a good exchange and I do not want to get into the specific politics of NHS funding, is that this is a win-win, because avoidable harm and death is incredibly expensive for the NHS. The time it takes to carry out investigations when things go wrong is utterly exhausting for the doctors, nurses and managers involved, who would much rather be doing front-line care. Preventing these things from happening in future is the best possible way of freeing up time for people on the frontline.

I will take away what the hon. Gentleman said about the Elizabeth Dixon case and find out what is happening with that review.

The real lesson of today is that every family, every doctor and every nurse has a simple aim when a tragedy happens. It is not about money; it is about making sure that lessons are learned openly and transparently so that history does not repeat itself. That is really what this is about, and that is why we will continue our mission to make NHS care the safest and highest quality in the world.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

The Secretary of State has answered my point, but I would like to say, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety, that the publication of avoidable death figures is really welcome news. I support what he said about creating a just culture where clinicians and other staff feel safe. That is important so that they can speak up about failure, and vital in delivering the high-quality but, most importantly, safer and better-value services the NHS aspires to.

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend, who does a huge amount of work on patient safety, not least because of sadness in her own family’s experiences that gives her particular passion in this respect. This is absolutely about creating a just culture. Inspiring people like James Titcombe, who lost his own son at Morecambe Bay, talk far more eloquently than I can about the need to get this right. Part of that just culture is about justice for people who use the NHS in future, to whom we have a responsibility to learn the lessons and make sure that mistakes are not repeated. One of the really important things we need to get right is to make sure that when something goes wrong in one place, there is a national way in which the lessons can be conveyed right across the NHS as quickly as possible.

NHS Spending

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whitford]

I totally agree. Of course, we all want the NHS to have more money. It is the United Kingdom’s single most prized possession and creation. The problem is that we did not counter the argument that it was struggling because people from the EU were taking up the appointments and the beds. EU nationals are much more likely to be looking after us than to be standing in front of us in the queue. There is an absolute responsibility on us all, particularly on the missing members of the leave campaign. This is very much a case of a big boy doing it and running away—very, very quickly.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

As somebody who was in the leave campaign, I think it is important that we remember that we worked across parties on it, whichever side we were on. In Yorkshire, I worked with colleagues from the Green party, the Labour party and UKIP, although I did not work with the SNP, obviously. It is the responsibility of both camps. I have seen “Project Fear” in both camps.

We need to move on from this now. It is pure economics. If we are pulling out of the EU, as the public have voted to do and as I am personally happy that we are doing, we must make sure that we start talking Britain up; otherwise we will talk ourselves into a recession. Members on both sides of the House need to pull together and talk Britain up. At the end of the day, both sides could have handled this better.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) answers the intervention, I must remind the House that this debate is not about the EU campaign. We are talking specifically about the NHS. I understand that the hon. Lady was—perfectly reasonably—using examples, but we must not stray any further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) and agree with many of her points.

I share concerns expressed about the misleading statements made on the national health service during the EU referendum campaign. Many of my constituents who voted to leave were swayed by the pledge that a future outside the European Union could result in £350 million extra every week being invested in our NHS—and if not £350 million, then £120 million would do very nicely at the moment and make a big difference. Whether they voted leave or remain, people feel very disillusioned with such misleading statements.

The breathtaking speed with which prominent figures from the leave campaign have backtracked on that promise shows how hollow their words really were. People on both sides of the debate are upset and angry about what has happened. They understand that our hospitals, doctors and nurses need better support and more investment. I therefore fully support the motion.

[Andrea Jenkyns]

I completely agree with the right hon. Lady that we need more investment, but does she agree that the Government are right to point out that we have invested an extra £8 billion in the NHS already?

[Joan Ryan]

If the hon. Lady looks at my constituency she will see a perfect storm when it comes to health funding. We are underfunded in public health, in social care, in primary care and in acute care. She can come up with whatever figure she likes, but the experience on the ground is that we are suffering very badly.

I will come on to talk about the Care Quality Commission report, out today, on our hospital. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has seen it, but if she wants to talk about increased spending, I suggest she look at that report. What it says about what is going on in an acute care hospital is unprecedented.