Ockenden Review

Debate between Dan Poulter and Nadine Dorries

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

As I said, the vast majority of the recommendations on Morecambe Bay have been implemented. Of those that were for wider NHS consideration, 14 have been implemented and 11 have not. However, this is not a case of us overnight going out and saying, “Right, this is how you change”—it takes a vast amount of work in policy, process and delivery. Those 11 recommendations are being worked on and have been worked on since the report on Morecambe Bay happened. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the fact that we do not have consistency across the NHS in terms of care or delivery. That is what we are working towards. We are currently developing a core curriculum of training that will be multi-disciplinary and we hope will rolled out next year. It will be undertaken by midwives, doctors, obstetricians and everybody working in the maternity unit so that they are all at a certain point of skill in terms of consistency, they are all aware of the lessons to be learned from the past in terms of safety, and they implement the recommendations that go across the UK in maternity units. Most maternity units in the UK operate well and deliver babies safely. We have fantastic maternity services in the UK. However, we do have difficult trusts. As in all disciplines, they are not all the same. This is about the outliers—the hospitals that we are working to identify early. With the core curriculum, we are making sure that everybody working in maternity units across the UK has the same standard and level of training.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con) [V]]

I welcome the considered tone the Minister has taken today in responding to the difficult contents of this report and in promoting a clinically led response to the findings rather than allowing knee-jerk political reactions that often do not lead to the right results. Let me pick up on one thing. What we see throughout a number of reports, be it Mid Staffs, Morecambe Bay or now this one, is that management is often central to setting a culture that allows mistakes and deaths to occur. When a clinician is found to be negligent, they have a responsible body—the Nursing and Midwifery Council or the General Medical Council—that can take action against them, but what are we going to do to ensure that managers receive better training and that we stop the revolving door of bad managers who are responsible for poor care being employed elsewhere in the NHS?

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my hon. Friend, who, again, is a predecessor in my Department—a former Health Minister. He is absolutely right to talk about strong leadership. Strong leadership has been established across the system. In the context of maternity services, which is what we are talking about, we have the maternity safety champions who are being led by Dr Matthew Jolly, the national clinical director of maternity and women’s health, and Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent OBE, the chief midwifery officer for England. There are lead clinicians who are leading clinically.

In terms of the management of the Shrewsbury and Telford trust, there have been eight chief executives in 10 years. That is not good. Good practice does not come from a revolving door of chief executives and board members who constantly rotate, because there is no continuation of learning, no loyalty, and no commitment to good outcomes at the hospital. We have to change this revolving door of boards and chief executives. The chief executive who is there now has our confidence, and we are assured that she will put in place the recommendations of the report, but my hon. Friend is right: it is crucial that we work on this revolving door of managers and those who are not clinically led, because that is part of the problem. He is right to identify that, and I want to reassure him that it is something we are aware of.