§ 8. Dr. Andrew Murrison (Westbury)If he will make an assessment of the reliability of waiting list data at the Royal United hospital, Bath. [59126]
§ The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton)The National Audit Office raised concerns last December about the accuracy of waiting list information at the Royal United Hospital Bath NHS trust. Those concerns were well founded. Since the publication of its report, the trust, the health authority and the regional director of health and social care have taken steps to ensure that waiting list information is reported strictly in accordance with the 1996 guidance. As a result of those and ongoing measures, I am confident that waiting list information that is reported from the trust is now accurate and reliable.
§ Dr. MurrisonI thank the Minister for that reply. The Royal United hospital is clinically excellent, but administratively it has not been so. If the administrative problems at the RUH were replicated in just small part across the country, the Government's recently announced figure of an increase of 23,000 for the total number of people waiting for treatment in the NHS would be a serious underestimate. Does the Minister agree that ministerial pressure on officials to come up with politically acceptable figures is unhelpful at the RUH and 150 elsewhere? Will he assure me that he has personally taken charge of the dire situation at the RUH, and will he please respond to my letter of 7 May in which I asked for a meeting with him to discuss progress?
§ Mr. HuttonI am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those observations, and I am of course more than happy to meet him. I must say that I have not yet seen his letter of 7 May, but I am not surprised by that.
It is hugely important that information about waiting lists and times is accurate and reliable—not only for the benefit of the NHS, but for that of the public and Members of Parliament. That is why a considerable amount of effort is put into ensuring that the data are accurate and reliable. For example, we recently asked the Audit Commission to conduct a series of spot checks. We will continue to look carefully at how the information is collected to make sure that it is accurate and reliable. That is an absolute obligation, and we intend to discharge it.
§ Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome)A significant number of my constituents noted the assurances that only two patients waited for longer than 15 months for an operation with mounting anger, because they knew perfectly well that they had waited that long for treatment at the Royal United hospital. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the significant problems at the RUH are not the fault of the medical and nursing staff, nor of the local population that is served by it, and that it should not be saddled with a history that prevents its staff from providing the improved level of care that we can reasonably expect in the Somerset area?
§ Mr. HuttonThe hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. No one is calling into question the commitment and dedication of the health care staff at Bath—they clearly do a fantastic job for their patients—but there have been serious management failures at the trust. We all have an overall responsibility to ensure that those failures are tackled, not brushed under the carpet, and that is what we are determined to do. However, it is fundamentally a matter for the local trust to bring any disciplinary action against the individuals who have been involved in this sorry business. That is the right way forward. I do not want to comment on the disciplinary aspects of the case—that would be inappropriate—but no one should doubt our determination to ensure that such episodes are not repeated and that the public and Members of Parliament have absolute confidence in the credibility and reliability of this important information.