Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Inquiry)

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. Like others, Staffordshire MPs have spoken with great passion about their care for their local health service and what it can provide.

On the timing, Robert Francis says that he wants all parts of the NHS to respond to him on what they are going to do right across the NHS, and that should be done over the next year. The Department of Health will be looking in the coming months at all the recommendations and responding. Specifically on the inspections, which are so important, as I said in my statement we are going to look at these changes to the CQC, but even before that Bruce Keogh is going to run this set of inspections into hospitals that have high rates of mortality and make sure that they are being dealt with properly.

[Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

It is quite clear that the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, which was supposed to encourage and protect whistleblowing, has failed in this case when faced with the culture of the NHS. On the lessons that could be learned, the Health Committee published a report in 2009 on patient safety and recommended that the Government should look at how whistleblowing was handled around the world, particularly in New Zealand. There, it is handled by an independent person, who carries out the inquiry, often anonymously from the complainant, and gets a far better reaction from institutions than we do here in the United Kingdom.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point about whistleblowers and how we handle them, and I am sure that Health Ministers will listen to that. I just make the point that supporting whistleblowers is one thing, but we also have to respond to what is being said. There were whistleblowers in the case of the Stafford hospital, but the problem was that the response to the complaints, the campaigns and the whistleblowing was completely inadequate.