Today at the Health and Social Care Committee, Lucy took evidence from an expert panel on the situation in accident and emergency departments and the impact on excess deaths across the country. The Committee heard evidence from:
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Dr Adrian Boyle, President, Royal College of Emergency Medicine
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Chris Hopson, Chief Strategy Officer, NHS England
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Professor Julian Redhead, National Clinical Director for Urgent and Emergency Care, NHS England
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Dr Vin Diwakar, Medical Director National Transformation and Medical Directorates, NHS England
As revealed in a Shropshire Star special investigation published today, the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust is amongst the worst performing in England. Lucy is determined to work with management to scrutinise shortcomings and find solutions to specific local challenges. It is not right for local health bosses to blame national factors for the specific and acute failings seen by residents in Telford, which are considerably worse than the rest of the country. Many of the issues residents are facing are a direct result of specific local factors.
As part of her mission to improve healthcare for residents in Telford, Lucy also met with key stakeholders at the Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin ICS on Friday, 20th February to raise her concerns directly. Whilst there is no quick fix to the complex and overlapping issues that lead to poor performance in A&E, Lucy is determined to hold management to account for the way people in Telford are being failed.
Lucy Allan MP said:
“Campaigning for better healthcare in Telford remains my top priority. Senior management must accept responsibility for specific local shortcomings. Nationally of course, the NHS faces many pressures, but the circumstances in Telford have been exacerbated by years of poor management and an unwillingness to accept failings.
Our local health service has been in special measures, calls regular “critical incidents” and both hospitals are rated inadequate overall by the CQC. This is not good enough and the managers and executives, who are well paid by the taxpayer to hold positions of responsibility for our local healthcare, must be held to account for their failings. They are not bystanders or observers, they are leaders and need to bring about improvements to healthcare for local people.”
You can watch the Committee session in full here. Lucy's questions start at 11:16:22.
