Today's speech by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt on patient safety comes as health watchdog the Care Quality Commission is embroiled in a scandal over patient deaths.
The CQC stands accused of covering up its own internal review of a 2010 inspection of Furness General Hospital in Cumbria: it had declared the hospital safe despite the deaths of up to 16 babies and two mothers there. But this is the tip of the iceberg: nationally last year, Mr Hunt says, 3,000 patients died needlessly and 500,000 were harmed, what he calls a “silent scandal” of errors. The CQC is supposed to maintain patient care standards. Clearly it is not doing so.
Now MPs will question CQC bosses. Mr Hunt says he has confidence in the organisation’s new management team, which plans a new regime of more rigorous inspections. But the credibility of such safeguards has been badly damaged. Earlier this year the damning final report of the public inquiry into deaths at the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust, where up to 1,200 patients may have died unnecessarily between 2005 and 2008, made many recommendations, especially for transparency. The CQC, in place since 2009, does not appear until recently, at least, to have made any real improvements to the inspection regime of its predecessors.
These failings are inexcusable. And even when errors do not result in deaths, the health service’s failing of some patients can still be serious: today we report on NHS bosses’ apology to three elderly women who were beaten and mistreated by staff at Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone last year. It is hard to avoid the impression that the CQC is at present still ineffectual, slow-moving and bureaucratic. Mr Hunt must ensure that it guarantees the quality of NHS care to avoid further needless deaths and suffering.
Cutting fire services
Boris Johnson’s claim that all of London will fall within official target response times for fire engines is simply wrong — more than 260 wards are outside the six-minute target even now, and 40 more will be outside it after his planned cuts to fire stations. His cavalier approach to the facts is a pity, because there is a case to be made for cutting spending on fire services. The Mayor has not made it well. His approach to the consultation process has been evasive, while this week’s Mayor’s Question Time degenerated into a shouting match as he was challenged by angry firefighters.
Yet firefighters are now attending fewer fires than in the past. There is a case for consolidating services and closing some stations, though perhaps staggered over a longer period than the Mayor plans. Response times for most parts of London will still be within the target: to bring all wards within it would require more rather than less spending. And in the end, the Fire Brigade will have to accept some cuts, like most other public services in times of austerity.
Wimbledon dreams
British tennis will start Wimbledon on Monday with higher hopes than in years, invested above all in Andy Murray. Mr Murray is seeded second this year behind Novak Djokovic but with a real chance of becoming the first British man to win the singles tournament since Fred Perry in 1936. And we will enjoy cheering on British women hopefuls including Laura Robson and Heather Watson too. Our support for them all is guaranteed; a pity we can’t be so sure of the weather.
