Ministers respond to Cumberlege Inquiry

Good morning,

Parliament will rise today for the summer…you can hear the sighs of relief from Downing Street already. But as usual there is a lot government’s have to release before recess. Some if it matters, some of it doesn’t. It can be a good way to judge a government’s priorities.

What should NHS staff take from the shambolic announcement of a 3 per cent pay rise only hours after a ministerial statement seemed to delay it. Was the announcement always planned this way or was it forced by the outcry yesterday afternoon?

Contact me in confidence here with thoughts and tips.

The goverment's response to the Cumberlege inquiry is lacking

I was wondering why health minister Nadine Dorries – who has been championing women’s health recently – had deleted her twitter account. I guessed it was because of the nonsense abuse she gets (please stop it). But maybe it was because she knew the government’s response to the Cumberlege inquiry was going to be released yesterday.

For those who need a reminder, the Cumberlege inquiry exposed the harm to tens of thousands of women caused by the use of vaginal mesh as well as the effects of medications sodium valproate and Primodus, which left scores of babies deformed and disabled.

When her inquiry was published Baroness Cumberlege said patients remained at risk from a “disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive” healthcare system which “cannot be relied on” to identify safety risks.
She added women had been repeatedly “dismissed, overlooked, and ignored”.

Enter Boris Johnson’s government who in responding to the inquiry have accepted only four of its nine recommendations and rejected one of the most important – a Redress Agency for those harmed by medical devices and drugs to help those who need it to get financial support. This would be funded by a levy on pharmaceutical and medical devices as a requirement to join the UK market with ex-gratia payments made to those who have experienced avoidable harm.

The health department has said no. And Nadine Dorries has vanished.

Reacting to the news in a joint statement Baroness Cumberlege and former health secretary Jeremy Hunt, who commissioned the inquiry said they were “deeply disappointed the government has rejected calls for an independent redress agency or any redress for families whose lives have been devastated by medicines or medical devices. For those families justice has not been done today.” Read the full government response here.

As the NHS battles a major summer crisis, the CQC’s chief inspector of hospitals has made his feelings clear that the problems being experienced now across England are due in part to the failures to reform the model of care for urgent and emergency patients.

I remain surprised that most of Fleet Street seems uninterested in the summer crisis gripping the health service – there is undoubtedly poor care happening on a large scale.

I will continue to write about it in the hope it gets more attention, as the patients affected need it to.

The long term effects of the pandemic are still emerging. One we are familiar with is the growing backlog of waiting lists in the NHS. Now a new report by the Policy Exchange think tank makes for sobering reading.

It suggests there are four million patients yet to be diagnosed by the NHS with one in five cancers usually detected in non-cancer referrals. This could translate into thousands of undetected cancers yet to be detected.

The think tank report includes an interesting foreward by former NHS England medical director Sir Bruce Keogh who makes the point that the public could well quickly lose patience with the NHS when they start experiencing the consequences personally. See above re summer crisis.

Sir Bruce writes: “Whilst a tolerant British public played their part in reducing demand for non-Covid services, that tolerance must be repaid or it will wane with the pandemic, as families pay a very personal price for delays in diagnosis and treatment.

“Intolerable waiting lists are back. This is our next big test…both the public and NHS staff have now seen better and expect better.”

What you might have missed this week

- Regular readers will know I have been writing a lot about maternity safety in the NHS. The Independent is hosting an online webinar with Donna Ockenden, who is leading the inquiry into poor care at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust to discuss the maternity crisis in the NHS. We will be joined by Eddie Morris, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists as well as maternity safety campaigner and all round good egg, James Titcome. Sign up here.
- Staying with Shrewsbury - the Home Office has bunged £4 million to West Mercia police as part of its criminal investigation into the maternity scandal. I think that's unprecedented.
- Is the recently debated Health and Care legislation a dastardly plan to privatise the NHS? No, and the effort wasted on this means serious issues with the legislation are ignored. Read this from the Nuffield Trust.

Please do not reply directly to this email.

You are currently registered to receive The Independent's Health email.

Add us to your safe list of senders

If you do not want to receive The Independent's Health email, please unsubscribe.

If you no longer wish to receive any newsletters or promotional emails from
The Independent, you can unsubscribe here.

This email was sent by Independent Digital News and Media Ltd,
2 Derry Street, London W8 5HF.
Registered in England and Wales with company number 07320345.

Read our privacy notice and cookie policy.