Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Inquiry)

Andrew Griffiths Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me go directly to the important question about the reforms, the status quo once they are in place and how that will help deliver what Francis talks about. As I said in answer to the Leader of the Opposition, Francis says he is content this can be delivered:

“it requires changes which can largely be implemented within the system that has now been created by the new reforms.”

I hope the reforms will help in a number of ways. I hope HealthWatch can be created as a robust independent organisation that is taken seriously by those in the health service and more widely. I hope that having clinical leadership of the clinical commissioning groups, with local GPs and others in charge, will mean they will reach further into their hospital and perhaps ask better questions than the primary care trust put. As I said at Prime Minister’s questions, I also hope that the Department of Health sets a mandate for the national Commissioning Board and that we put quality and care for patients at the heart of it. While I accept that we need some process targets because things such as waits in A and E matter, I hope that the move towards judging outcomes rather than processes will reinforce the importance of quality, because if we do not get quality care, we will not get quality outcomes.

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

The Prime Minister will be aware that since the closure of the A and E at Stafford, Queen’s hospital in Burton has been dealing with some of the patients that would have gone to Mid Staffs. Will he join me in thanking all the staff at Queen’s and the other hospitals across Staffordshire who have worked so hard to try to deal with the consequences of the Mid Staffs fallout? Given that he understands the genuine concern that is felt in my constituency and across Staffordshire about health care, will he assure my constituents that never again will ticking boxes be put ahead of caring and compassion in the NHS?

[The Prime Minister]

I can certainly give my hon. Friend that guarantee. The whole tenor of this report is that quality patient care must come before anything else, including targets, no matter how important they can sometimes be. I join him in praising those in his own local hospital who have been working hard and delivering accident and emergency services. If anyone wants to understand just how badly the target chasing and obsession got at Stafford hospital, they can see on page 108 in volume I some chilling evidence that staff just felt they could not complain about quality because they were being chased so hard on the targets that everything else was put to one side.