Patient safety

‘As shocking as it is, that’s the truth’ – Nicholson grilled by MPs

NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson insisted he is “the right person” to lead the health service at a confrontational evidence session before the Health Select Committee during which he said he had “no idea” what was going on at Stafford hospital while he was SHA chief executive.

“As shocking as it is, that’s the truth,” he told them. He accepted he was “part” of an environment where the leadership of the NHS “lost its focus” – when hundreds of patients needlessly died at Stafford hospital and care standards on some wards were shockingly low.

From 2005-06 Nicholson was chief executive of the West Midlands SHA; a role meant to include oversight of Stafford hospital. A number of campaigners and 40 MPs are calling for Nicholson to resign and say it is a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’.

But Sir David rejected doubts over his ability to lead the NHS, and asserted he had “no idea” what was going on at Stafford. There was no data which could have alerted them to the high death rates, he added.

Nicholson told MPs: “I said two years ago that I would take the responsibility of leading the NHS through this enormously complex set of changes. I promised both the Government and the NHS that I would see that through and I am absolutely determined to do that over the next period.

“I think I have a duty and a responsibility to manage the organisation over these great changes. I also think that, if you look at my record of what I've actually done, you can see that I absolutely get the changes that need to happen to the NHS.

“I do believe that, given my commitment to the [NHS] constitution, given my understanding of the way the NHS operates, given my commitment to patients and the way I conceive things like transparency and opening up the NHS, I think I am absolutely the right person to take that forward.”

Speaking of his time at the SHA, Sir David said: “During that period, across the NHS as a whole, patients were not the centre of the way the system operated.

“For a whole variety of reasons, not because people were bad but because there were a whole set of changes going on and a whole set of things we were being held accountable for from the centre, which created an environment where the leadership of the NHS lost its focus.

“I put my hands up to that and I was a part of that, but my learning from that was to make sure it doesn't happen again.”

He also stated that gagging orders on the NHS were “unacceptable” and that a new contractual obligation for ‘candour’ would be imposed to ensure staff could voice any concerns over patient safety.

Steve Barclay, Tory MP for North East Cambridgeshire, said: “There was already sufficient evidence for Sir David to go…his performance could leave little doubt that it is simply a matter of when, not if.”

During the session, Labour MP Valerie Vaz suggested that he was still uninterested in patients: “What struck me about your statement (to the Mid Staffordshire Inquiry) is it is very much like you are a process man and a procedure man. I can't find anything about patients in there and what you are going to do on quality of care.”

Sir David rejected the description.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman repeated Cameron’s view that Sir David should not resign and was the right man to lead the NHS, a view backed yesterday by five former Labour and Conservative health secretaries.

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