Oral Answers to Questions

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I hope so, but I want to be honest with the House. It takes time to change a culture, and that is the big change we have to make. Whistleblowers are now coming forward from Coventry, Cambridge, Ealing and all over the country. That is why I am afraid that I profoundly disagree with the shadow Health Secretary, who said that the lessons of the Francis report were about a local failure. This is about a systemic problem and we have to change it across the NHS.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

Given there are so many emerging cases of whistleblowers—both current and historic—being treated with injustice, a precedent will not be set for accountability until these injustices are actually faced. Will the Secretary of State set up a truth and reconciliation committee to look at historic and current cases so that accountability becomes a reality?

[Mr Hunt]

First, I commend my hon. Friend for her campaigning on this issue in the House and on the Health Committee. We have not done everything we need to do to change the culture within the NHS, and we are looking at what more needs to be done to get a culture change profound enough to make it easier for people to speak out. This is not just about whistleblowing. If it is whistleblowing, we have failed because it means that someone has had to go to the press or outside their organisation when they were worried. We need an NHS where people within their own organisation are listened to when they have concerns, and we are looking at what we need to do to take that forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Poulter]

I am very happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss this further and see what we can do because it is important that the vulnerable patient groups she highlighted are looked after in the right way.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

As he heralds an era of transparency, can the Secretary of State update us on what steps he has taken to ensure that private providers in the NHS are every bit as transparent and accountable as public ones?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

I think they absolutely should be, and the changes that we introduced in the Care Act 2014 relating to the transparency of the inspection regimes apply to private providers supplying services to the NHS just as they do to NHS providers. Let us be absolutely clear: poor care is poor, whether it happens in the public sector or the private sector, and we must clamp down on it wherever it happens.