NHS Trusts: Accountability

Debate between Mike Penning and Rachel Maclean

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mike Penning]

My hon. Friend brings great expertise to the debate, and I thank her for joining us. She is absolutely right. I declare an interest: my mother was a nurse in the days of “sister” and “matron”. Then there were nurse managers and other managers—all of a sudden, we went that way, but we seem to be coming back again. We can change the name on the Titanic, but it is still the Titanic: a manager is a manager, no matter what title we put on them.

It seems to me that we are not reducing the number of managers. I vividly remember that there were 11 primary care trusts in the Dacorum area of my constituency. Then the number reduced to two—one, actually, because there was only one director of finance. When we looked at the head count, the cost analysis, which should have massively reduced, it had actually gone up.

I want clinicians to be involved in the day-to-day care of my constituents, but I am not convinced that a GP should chair a clinical commissioning group, especially given that in most cases they do not seem to be full time in the role. What qualifications do they bring? I know that GP practices are much more business-orientated now than ever before, but they employ practice managers—the partners do not run things.

More recently, there has been an understandable concern in my constituency about the proposed closure of one of the facilities called Nascot Lawn; it is not in my constituency, but was playing a vital role in looking after the most vulnerable children in my community. Brilliantly, the families and loved ones came together to challenge the closure. They got the MPs on board and we were involved. I then scratched my head and said, “Hold on a second, I remember being told that Nascot Lawn was going to provide the respite care for my constituents when they closed a place called Woolmer Drive.” Woolmer Drive was a desperately needed respite centre where young people could go, and where their carers and loved ones could spend a bit of time. So not only did Woolmer Drive close, which meant that patients had to go to Nascot Lawn, but Nascot Lawn was closing. That was challenged, but there was very, very little consultation.

I will talk about consultations in quite a lot of depth. Frankly, most consultations are a sham. The decisions are made before they consult. They make the decision to close, put it in their budgetary regime and then consult. They then come out and say, “We’ve listened to the consultation and we are going to ignore you.” So what is the point of the consultation?

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend echoes our experience in Worcestershire. The Minister will know the deep concern my constituents have about Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. Exactly the same thing happened before I came to this place. Services were taken away from the hospital and people were told, “You’re being consulted.” All that happened was that services were removed. It was part of a plan, I understand that, but the idea that it was a consultation is really for the birds.

[Sir Mike Penning]

It is a tick-box exercise. Most of the time trusts cannot even get that right. In this particular case—I will come on to another case in a moment—we challenged it. We judicially reviewed it not once, but twice. But why should members of the public have to come together to raise money to judicially review such decisions? There is currently no other process with proper discussion and involvement of patients, which challenges the decisions we hear day in, day out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Mike Penning]

It is all well and good saying that there should be, perhaps in legislation, but unless people have the confidence that their career is not going to be curtailed, or unless they are close to retirement and are not going to put their pension at risk, they are not going to blow the whistle. What really upsets me is that although I was sent to this House to represent people and for them to be able to tell me, in confidence, anything that they needed to, so that between the two of us we could discuss how to take it forward—often without using their name, but if necessary we can—that is not happening. That really worries me an awful lot.

To go back to Nascot Lawn, we went to a judicial review. We have done that before in our part of the world. The judge sided with the patients, but all that happened—it was about process, of course—was that it went back to the CCG, which turned around and said, “We will consult slightly differently. We will address what the court said, and by the way, we are going to go ahead and do it.” It is a sham, and we should be honest about that in the House.

When we tried to prevent our acute hospital from being closed—I pay tribute to my community for that—we did everything in the world. We got a coffin on a trolley, and thousands of us pushed it from my A&E that was going to close to the nearest one at Watford hospital, which it was proposed people should go to, in order to show just how much passion there was. We managed to get the money together to go to judicial review—a lot of money; in excess of £60,000—and the judge said, “You have a moral case. You have an ethical case. I agree with you, but you don’t have a case in law because all the powers are with the trust and the PCT”, as it was then. I ask the Minister: how can it be right that people must be so concerned, not just in my constituency but elsewhere?

Lastly on this part of my speech, let me talk again about what happened when we lost our A&E. I have raised this in the House before, so the Minister knows what I am talking about. To go back a bit further, St Albans, Hemel Hempstead and Watford are covered by West Herts, and at one time all three had A&Es. We are a massively growing population. The largest town in Hertfordshire is Hemel, which will have a projected 20,000 new homes in the next 20 years. St Albans is expanding, and so is Watford. There was a consultation, but the public were ignored. The A&E was closed and made into an elective surgery facility in St Albans. The public promises to the people of St Albans were that Hemel’s A&E would look after them. It is not a particularly long ride—it is clearly not in St Albans town centre, but that was going to be that. However, a few years on, those responsible said, “Let’s shut Hemel’s A&E and move it to Watford, because that can look after West Herts,” so the promises went out the window. The public went mad in St Albans and in our area. They were all on the streets, and what did we get? An urgent care centre, some out-patient services and a fracture clinic. Really and truly, that is all that is left in Hemel.

[Rachel Maclean]

My right hon. Friend is generous in giving way a second time. Again, the parallels with Redditch are interesting. Does he agree that the problem for the public comes when they see that their town is growing and they feel that trusts have not planned for the future? That is exactly what we have in Redditch as well, because it is a new town and it is growing, and people do not understand how the future demand will be catered for in the trust’s plans.

[Sir Mike Penning]

That is absolutely what I hear every day in my constituency. I also hear, “What are you going to do about it, Mr MP? Get off your backside and do something about it!” I am doing everything I possibly can—I am meeting Secretaries of State and trusts—but what happens? I get ignored, because I have no powers at all; it is all in the hands of bureaucrats.