NHS Trusts: Accountability

Part of Delegated Legislation – in the House of Commons at 5:31 pm on 10 July 2018.

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Photo of Jim Cunningham Jim Cunningham Labour, Coventry South 5:31, 10 July 2018

This is a timely debate. I agree with my right hon. Friend John Spellar: it seems to me that a game of musical chairs is going on. We see chief executives who leave under questionable circumstances get a job outside the NHS and then turn up at another trust somewhere else. There does not seem to be any accountability.

As politicians, we are often accused of being remote, but nobody is more remote than people at some of the trusts I have looked at. Someone trying to get information from them about their budgets and where the expenditure goes has a job on their hands. It is about time that how the Department is run is looked at; it gives directions to the rest of the chief executives in the country, even on appointments.