North Staffordshire Hospital NHS Trust

HC Deb 19 January 2004 vol 416 cc1067-9W

Phil Sawford

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action he has taken following the Griffiths report into the research framework at North Staffordshire hospital NHS Trust. [147507]

Dr. Ladyman

The Department takes very seriously the points made in the report about the importance of public safety, and of protecting children. The Department of Health, Home Office, Department for Education and Skills and the Welsh Assembly Government published "Safeguarding Children in Whom Illness is Fabricated or Induced" in August 2002. Paragraphs 6.46—6.51 provide guidance on the use of covert video surveillance and references the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000.

This document was in response to the recommendation made within the Griffiths report to develop guidelines to assist the identification of children who have had illnesses feigned or induced by a carer within the framework of "Working Together to Safeguard Children (1999)", the Government's inter-agency guidance on child protection. It was the subject of public consultation prior to being published in 2002.

We have also taken a number of steps to strengthen research and clinical governance systems, not necessarily as a direct result of the findings of the Griffiths report. For example:

We have established the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) to focus our efforts to improve patient safety in the national health service and to run a new national reporting and learning system for patient safety incidents. The reporting system will be implemented across the NHS during 2004.

NHS staff will be able to report adverse incidents and "near misses" affecting NHS patient care to the NPSA, so that patterns and trends can be identified and lessons learnt in one part of the NHS can be properly shared with the whole of the health service.

The NHS Plan set out a review of consent procedures to ensure that good practice in seeking consent for both treatment and research is in place throughout the NHS. In November 2001, "The Good Practice in Consent Implementation Guide: Consent to Examination or Treatment", was published, containing a model consent policy and consent forms.

In the summer of 2000, the Department set up the Central Office for Research Ethics Committees to improve the support provided for multi centre research ethics and local research ethics committees.

The Department published the Research Governance Framework in March 2001, aimed at continuous improvements and the reduction of unacceptable variations in research practice across health and social care. The Department has been monitoring NHS trusts' compliance with the framework since its publication.

In its 2002–03 annual research and development report, North Staffordshire hospitals reported satisfactorily on compliance with the research governance framework targets for March 2003 and that it was either already compliant or on target with the research governance framework targets for March 2004. Actual compliance with the March 2004 targets will be assessed in the 2003–04 annual research and development report.

The Department has commissioned a substantial audit of the use of continuous negative extrathoracic pressure at the University hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust (formerly North Staffordshire hospital NHS Trust). This is still on-going. The results will be published when the audit is completed.