NHS: Shared Business Services

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness will know that I was not in post at the end of last summer, so I cannot explain why there were the number of Statements that there were. I know that Governments of perhaps different hues have also tended to put out Written Statements, so I do not think any political party is entirely innocent in this regard. The point is that the information was made available to Parliament.

On the point about cost settlement, there are interested parties here and the costs need to be settled once we have got to the bottom of exactly what has happened and once those inquiries and indeed the investigations into the potential for patient harm have been settled. I underline that as yet no instances of patient harm have been discovered.

Finally, the point about privatisation is quite an important one. The noble Baroness will know that the private sector is involved in the delivery of all parts of the NHS. Breach of contract, which is what this is, and the covering up of mistakes happen in all parts of the health service—public, private, shared and all the rest of it. It is not a case of “private sector bad, public sector good”: we know that from instances like Mid Staffs and so on. The core point is that we need very strong data security standards, and that is why the Government will be responding in due course to the Caldicott review and the review of these issues by the CQC.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

On one of the points the Minister responded to, perhaps I may politely offer him a piece of advice. Everyone here knows that officials advise and Ministers decide—but it is not convention, protocol or indeed courtesy to announce in Parliament that advice has been given by Ministers’ officials and he has decided to overrule it. That is not just a matter of useless etiquette; it is a fundamental aspect of maintaining the trust between Parliament and the Minister and between the Minister and his officials, which will serve him well in future.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I take the noble Lord’s advice very seriously. Indeed, I note that he, as a former Secretary of State for Health, understands what is going on and the dynamics within the department. I would say only that the NAO report has described a set of actions that have taken place and why they have taken place. It has described the decision-making process, which is why the Statement responds to the content of the NAO report as it was set out today.