Speeches by Dixon.

“Professor Fowler, you might know that I did some work many years ago at the King’s Fund on an inquiry into safer births. It looked at many of the historical reports on what needed to change to reduce harm in maternity services. It said that there are far too many recommendations, none of them is being acted on, and thi…”

“Can I just establish something? In the pre-panel, we heard about victims of car crashes, and the view there seems to be to get rehabilitation in very early and as intensely as possible, because the more appropriate treatment you can provide somebody, the more you can give them improvements that reduce their lifelong ne…”

“I would like to come specifically to maternity and obstetric care. Given what you said in your opening remarks, and what the NAO Report says very starkly, these are obviously the higher value cases; they account for a significant proportion of cases, and a significant proportion of the increase in claims. As a constitu…”

“You are absolutely right. I think I arrived in the Department in 2013 when the Lansley reform to separate the Department of Health and the NHS was taking place. With various mergers of organisations and arm’s length bodies into NHS England, it has ballooned over time, so I absolutely see the need to reduce duplication.…”

“I should probably declare an interest as I previously worked for the Department of Health, and I do have quite a lot of constituents who work in NHS England in the Leeds offices who will be affected by this redundancy. It is always difficult when you are talking about such large numbers because it does affect people an…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered inequalities faced by unpaid carers. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. First, I will note my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on carers, which is supported by Carers UK—an organisati…”

“I thank the Minister for his response. Given what we know about carer burnout and the need for short breaks, and given the data that suggests local authority funding cuts have resulted in less support being available, will there be work between the NHS—with its increased budget—and local authorities to look at how we c…”

“I thank all Members who have spoken in the debate, especially my hon. Friends the Members for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) and for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) for sharing their moving personal stories and for all they do as parent carers. I also thank the right hon. Member for Daventry (Stuart And…”

“Apologies, Chair, but at the start of this part of the hearing I should have declared that I am an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety.”

“Perhaps, then, you can have a go at it, Samantha. The whole purpose of this hearing is to bear down on harm, claims and legal costs. In your answers, you have told us about a lot of things that you say are being done. Will they make a difference?”

“Helen, in terms of this Committee coming back and looking at the public liabilities from clinical negligence—which sit second only to nuclear decommissioning—and recognising that much of that is baked in, because the claims go well into the future, how rapidly do you think we will see a fall in the new claim totals and…”

“From the public point of view, and probably from a clinician point of view, when are they going to see this change, in terms of both reduced harm and a simpler system to navigate?”

“The Dash review looked at the fact that there were many organisations with different responsibilities in this space. I suppose I come back to where we started: there is HSSIB and the MNSI—a new one I learned of today—then obviously there is NHS Resolution, the patient safety work in NHS England, which will be reorganis…”

“I hope you understand why I am asking, given how important we are saying an open culture is to reducing harm. I wanted to make sure that you saw the duty of candour as something that would support and enhance the safety culture.”

“Thank you to our witnesses; it is really great to hear the commitment to continuing patient safety work, and making sure that there is action and learning. We have now had the duty of candour within the health service for some time—obviously, the Hillsborough law will bring in that duty of candour more broadly. To what…”

“Do they relate to deprivation of liberty? What was the harm in mental health?”

“The only other areas where the data seems to be going in the wrong way are mental health, radiology and paediatrics. Is there anything specific with those areas to explain why that is? And what might you seek to do? Again, either Helen or Professor Fowler can answer.”

“The other specialty where more progress has been made is obviously surgery. Again, there are the long-standing issues—WHO programmes, surgical safety checklists and everything. What has led to the reductions in surgical claims? How are you applying any lessons from that to other areas, if at all?”

“Okay. It was just about the learning from Victoria, Australia. We heard really quite dramatic figures—a reduction of about 50% there in claims and cost frequency. The idea is that if all English units could achieve the same outcomes as the top 20%, there would not only be 116 fewer infants born with cerebral palsy, but…”

“Sorry—there was a second part to the question, which was to go on to other specialties. Should I just briefly pick that up, Chair?”