§ Mr. MossTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will commission a public inquiry into the events and procedures surrounding the death of Mrs. Hilary Pearce at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge; and if he will make a statement. [110842]
§ Ms StuartAddenbrooke's Hospital National Health Service Trust has offered its sincerest apologies to the family of Mrs. Pearce following this dreadful mistake which caused her tragic death. The trust has conducted an internal inquiry into the circumstances surrounding this incident and Mrs. Pearce' s family has been given the full report of the findings. The trust has taken this matter seriously and has already put in place action in response to the recommendations of the inquiry.
Too often we hear of incidents occurring in the NHS which should have been avoidable if the lessons of past experience had been properly learned. That is why last year we asked the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Liam Donaldson, to convene an expert group to examine the mechanisms by which the NHS currently analyses and learns from adverse health care events and to make recommendations for improvements. The group will report to Health Ministers shortly and we will be looking very carefully indeed at what it has to say.