Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review
Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Margaret Greenwood(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Hunt
International experts from the Commonwealth Fund in New York say that we are the safest healthcare system in the world, but that gives me pause for thought because there is still so much avoidable harm and death in our system right now. If we are the safest, that says that healthcare everywhere needs to improve.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
Campaigners on Primodos will be hugely disappointed by the Secretary of State’s statement and his failure to recognise the concerns they have raised about the expert working group. That aside, how many patients does he envisage being involved in the review, and how does he believe that they will be best accessed to ensure that those people who are quiet actually have their voices heard?
Mr Hunt
That is the entire purpose of the review. Obviously, Baroness Cumberlege will want to involve patients in the process right from the start, and I will talk to her about that. I will also write to the hon. Lady to spell out in detail the way in which the Baroness intends to involve patients in the process.
NHS Shared Business Services
Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Margaret Greenwood(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Hunt
The NHS is extremely good at responding to crises and emergencies, as tragically we have found out in recent months. This is an example of the NHS doing a very good job when it realises the scale of the problem. For me, the lessons that really need to be learned are about not the response to the issue but the assurance processes that allowed the problem to happen in the first place.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
The National Audit Office says that the review of the backlog of correspondence has found 1,788 cases of potential patient harm, so what action is the Secretary of State taking to support those patients?
Mr Hunt
All those cases have already been looked at by two sets of clinicians, and so far, on the basis of those two reviews, no patient harm has been identified. However, because we want to be absolutely sure, we are having a third clinical review that will be even more thorough, potentially with more than one set of clinicians, so that we can get to the bottom of this and find out.