The last remark of the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, was very pertinent indeed.
After this debate, I probably need to say only that, from these Benches, we support the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, in her proposal to establish a patient safety commissioner on a statutory basis. We have heard powerful contributions from the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, herself, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and my noble friend Lord Hunt. I always thought, when I was a Minister and since, that you should always listen when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, says that, in his “respectful submission”, something is a good idea; it is always a good idea for the Minister to take note of that.
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The scale and severity of avoidable harm that resulted from the three interventions over a period of several decades is shocking, as noble Lords have said. As the noble Baroness says, such experiences resulted in
“relationships destroyed, careers broken, and as a result financial ruin, with no income, many lost their homes, and faced their children being taken into care”.
The report also strongly states that patients and their families should not be left to
“join up the dots of patient safety”
for themselves.
Over the 20 years that I have been in your Lordships’ House, there have been at least three reports about patient safety—some as a result of scandals—yet the systematic causes of unsafe care persist. I recall Liam Donaldson’s report in 2000, An Organisation with a Memory, a report of an expert group on learning from adverse events in the NHS, and Ian Kennedy’s heart-wrenching 2002 report on the public inquiry into children’s heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, Learning from Bristol. Of course, I was the Minister who, from the Dispatch Box, had to deal with the Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry , or Francis report, which was as harrowing in what it said as the report of the noble Baroness. And yet we have still not learned how to ensure that patient safety is at the heart of our work in the NHS and that patients have a voice. That is what is at the heart of this amendment.
The amendment also deals with health inequalities. The interventions focused on in the report were all taken and used by women, and its findings highlight consistent themes around sexist attitudes to patients’ concerns. That is yet another reason why having an independent patient voice is so important.
I hope that the Minister supports this amendment and, if he cannot, that he will commit to bringing an amendment back on Report which recognises the patient voice and influence within the NHS, and that a new patient safety commissioner would strengthen that voice and the NHS enormously by bringing a focused perspective to improving patient safety.