Andy Burnham repeats call for NHS risk assessment documents to be made public

Ahead of Wednesday’s update from the Government on the implementation of the recommendations from the Francis report two years, Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham has written to Jeremy Hunt to remind Ministers of the report’s call for NHS risk assessment documents to be made public.

The Francis call came after the Government failed to comply with the ruling by the Information Commissioner in 2012 that the Department of Health should release the full and final version of the risk register for the NHS reorganisation.

The King’s Fund’s new report on the harm it did to patient care is a further reminder for the Government that the warnings must now be released in full.

Full copy of Andy Burnham’s letter:

Dear Jeremy,

NHS RISK REGISTER PUBLICATION

Friday’s report by the independent Kings Fund shines a light on the very real harm done to patient care by this Government’s NHS reorganisation. The report finds that “its effects were both damaging and distracting” and that “it seems likely that the massive organisational changes that resulted from the reforms contributed to widespread financial distress and failure to hit key targets for patient care”.

Since the reorganisation, we have seen the A&E crisis develop, with more than a dozen hospitals declaring major incidents last month; and key patient rights breached, such as the waiting-time standard to begin cancer treatment within two months. A recent survey of NHS staff found the vast majority saying that your Government’s reorganisation has harmed patient care, with just 3% saying it has improved patient care.

The Health & Social Care Act was of course widely opposed. You will recall that at the time it was passing through Parliament the Government received many warnings from experts, staff and patients about the risks they were running to patient care. The Government chose to ignore these warnings and ploughed on regardless.

Despite the controversy surrounding the impact of the NHS reorganisation, your Government has not been open and honest about the risks you took with the NHS. In 2012, the Information Commissioner ruled that the Government should publish the transitional risk register for the Health & Social Care Act, but you have refused to comply with this ruling.

Were the Government warned that the reorganisation would hit A&E or cancer care? Or that the dramatic loss of nurses between 2011 and 2013 would lead to widespread care problems?
A leaked early draft contained these warnings and it is crucial to know the warnings in the final version that was ordered to be released. They are important questions to which patients and the public deserve an answer if we are to learn from this damaging episode and ensure it is not repeated.

You have previously declared a commitment to transparency and to ensuring that the NHS is open and honest about risk. I am therefore calling on you to stop suppressing this information and comply with the Information Commissioner’s ruling that the risk register be published.

You will also note that a key recommendation of Robert Francis’ second Inquiry into Mid-Staffordshire hospital trust was that “Impact and risk assessments should be made public, and debated publicly, before a proposal for any major structural change to the healthcare system is accepted”, and it was argued that the Department of Health should set an example here.

But this is one of many recommendations of the Francis Inquiry that you have not acted on.

Ahead of the two-year anniversary of the second Francis Inquiry, perhaps you can set on the record whether or not you intend to accept this recommendation?

Yours sincerely,


RT HON ANDY BURNHAM MP

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