It is a pleasure to contribute to this important debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), and other Members, on securing it. Transparency and accountability are the hallmark of good governance, but they can involve issues such as whether a patient is on the Liverpool care pathway, whether that is transparent and whether their families know, not solely about the running of a particular trust.
I welcome freedom of information requests, which are among the most useful tools available to a Member of Parliament trying to secure information on data held by hospitals, ambulance services and so on. It is extraordinary, however, that we must resort to those tools to try to get that information and help in holding the people running our services to account.
I accept that the NHS is a complex organisation—imagine a hospital that has issues with bed-blockers, social care, or people trying to find a place in a home, or where ambulances are exceeding their handover targets. Those are interlocking issues. I still think, however, that it is important to hold the chief executives and boards of these trusts to account.
I was late today because I was at a meeting with the chairman and chief executive of our ambulance trust. This is not the first time I have had to work with other MPs to highlight particular failures. In a Westminster Hall debate, I called for the chairman of James Paget hospital to step aside. I have not made that call today. I have asked the chairman of the board to consider carefully the potential issues arising from the CQC
report that is due to come out at any moment. It is frustrating that in trying to hit the target people often miss the point. The point is to care for patients.
The Care Quality Commission and Monitor were mentioned earlier. I welcome the changes made by the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley) to introduce unannounced spot checks by CQC. A lot of issues were unveiled as a result of the changes and that is to be welcomed. I welcome the recommendation to merge CQC and Monitor, as there is a risk of ambiguity over exactly which body is holding people to account. I welcome the move by the Secretary of State to have Ofsted-style inspections. I am sure he will learn lessons and ensure that they are focused on clear issues, and not just on myriad matters that get away from the key point of patient care.
MPs in the east of England came together and, by speaking to the CQC and providing evidence, we managed to stop the ambulance trust gaining foundation trust status, because of the issue of care. Politicians therefore can and should intervene when there is evidence of things going wrong, and not just accept the initial recommendation of Monitor.
I pay tribute to David Hill, chief executive of James Paget hospital. He had been chief executive of the hospital before and went elsewhere in the health care system. He came back and within a week I could see that he had made a difference in the attitude to care. A year on, I am delighted to report that all the warning notices have gone and that in the latest unannounced inspection it was given a clean bill of health. That is great news for the patients and great news for the staff. It is a reminder that being brave and being prepared to incur the wrath of people who assume one is attacking the NHS when one is actually trying to defend the NHS and patients, can be worthwhile.
That leads me on to the matter of the difficult jobs we have to do. We have to remind all our governors and board members that they are there to represent the patients. They should not feel cowed. They should be tenacious in pursuing the outcomes that everybody wants in the NHS. These are not easy times—I appreciate that. Let us not have too much hand-wringing about how hard it is. We all know it is, but I believe that politicians of all parties are here to try to support the people. We will not do that by ducking the reality that we have to be accountable. That is true in this House if we let down our constituents, but it is also true for the members of boards who do not hold their chief executive to account and demand nothing but the best for their patients.
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