Gosport Independent Panel: Publication of Report - Statement

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:03 pm on 20 June 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Lord O'Shaughnessy Lord O'Shaughnessy The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care 6:03, 20 June 2018

I thank the noble Lord for associating himself with that apology. He asked the right question. It was very well put. If the circumstances arose now, would the response be different? I think there is reason to believe it would be, for the reason I have set out—the improvements that successive Governments have made on patient safety—but we should not be complacent. We cannot assume that those things are enough. I hope they are an improvement. We believe they are an improvement, but we need to ask ourselves that very difficult question about whether they would be enough. That is what we will be doing through this process.

Resources are one of the issues. We need to make sure not only that there is clarity about the circumstances under which the different bodies can carry out inquiries without impinging upon inquiries by other bodies, but that they feel that they are capable of doing so. That is one of the things we are going to need to investigate.