I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his point, although it has been examined at length, so I do not want to go down that rabbit hole with him—I hope he will forgive me.
The post-mortem on Mr Ryan indicated that he probably would have suffered the same fate in any event, but the system let the Ryans down—Mrs Lyn Ryan made that point to me and to the local newspaper.
Unfortunately, the case plays right into the fears of the public in Wycombe, because we lost our accident and emergency facility in 2005 and we recently lost our emergency medical centre. We have just had two similar repeat occurrences of the minor injuries unit failing to refer people across the car park into the excellent cardiology and stroke units. We have seen an enormous range of little problems, for example, an 85-year-old lady with dementia was sent home in a taxi at 2 am in just her hospital gown. This cannot go on, and the public’s concerns are justified. The trust is being investigated by Sir Bruce Keogh and although I have heard good reasons why its mortality levels are justified—they relate to running hospice care, in particular—this must be taken as an opportunity to improve things.
Finally, I wish to make a point on transparency. Yesterday, I spoke to Anne Eden, the chief executive of the trust. I am not going to put on the record the entire content of the conversation, but when I told her that I intended to raise this issue of corporate manslaughter on the radio this morning, I was told, in terms, “To protect the reputation of the Buckinghamshire trust, legal action would be sought.” This is a matter of public interest being raised by a Member of Parliament in good faith, but I have had to—[Interruption.] To be fair to her, she was talking about the radio. But I have had to rely on privilege to protect myself from being sued on this matter. It is not acceptable that such a matter should have to come to a Member of Parliament, simply to rely on privilege. The situation reinforces something I have experienced again and again since becoming an MP: second-hand rumours and half-truths about the state of health care in Buckinghamshire. I have encountered: people stymied; people thinking it is helpful to give half a rumour to a friend to repeat to me so that I can know how bad things are; and people’s frustration at not being able to do anything. I know that Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust is obviously close to your heart, Mr Speaker. I know that it expects to satisfy Sir Bruce Keogh, but it is really time for proper accountability and that must include the courts.
4.3 pm