NHS Major Incidents Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Diana Johnson
Main Page: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)Department Debates - View all Diana Johnson's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Hunt
I will take no lessons in stamping out news stories on poor care because I am worried about the impact on reputation. That is what happened when the shadow Health Secretary was behind my desk, and it was totally unacceptable. That is why we had a clutch of hospitals where poor care was swept under the carpet year in, year out because a Labour Government did not want bad news to come out in the run-up to an election. It was a disgrace and this Government are putting it right.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Two weeks ago I asked the Secretary of State about a comment that had been made to me by a senior clinician in Hull that the trust in Hull at Hull royal infirmary had been on internal major incidents on and off since December. The Secretary of State told me that that was not really an issue and that it was down to the trust, but the documents that have been produced today show that the real reason is that it is politically much more expedient to have an internal incident than to declare one externally and get all the bad publicity and reputational risk mentioned in the document to which my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State referred to. That is the case, is it not?
Mr Hunt
Let me make two points to the hon. Lady. When I talk to the House about the number of major incidents, we make no distinction between internal and external incidents. We talk about them all as major incidents. There is no benefit, if one looks at it in that way, to Ministers from it being either an internal or an external incident. What matters is the right thing for patients. Rather than trying to politicise the issue and turning it into a political football, the Opposition should listen to Dame Barbara Hakin, chief operating officer of the NHS, who said clearly today that the decision was nothing to do with Ministers, they did not know about it and it was not taken at the request of Ministers. Labour should concentrate on supporting the NHS where it could do with its help—in Wales today.