Labour piles pressure on ministers to use NHS cash boost for patient safety
2 min read
Labour has promised to force ministers to put improvements to patient safety "front and centre" of a major NHS review.
Health service bosses are currently working on a ten-year plan to try and work out how to spend the extra £20bn-a-year of funding pledged by Theresa May in June.
But Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth urged ministers to guarantee that the money will go on ensuring staffing levels, online safety and the NHS's medical examiner service are improved.
He said the party would step in and try and amend the upcoming Health Service Safety Investigations Bill if the Government fails to prioritise patient safety.
Mr Ashworth told the Dods Health and Care Forum reception at Labour's annual conference: "The NHS Ten Year Plan must come with clear rules on safer NHS staffing; a beefed up role for medical examiners; and proper rules to keep patients safe from rogue apps and private tech developers.
"And I am announcing today that if the Government fail to deliver on these demands then Labour will amend the upcoming Health Service Safety Investigations Bill to force these changes through ourselves.
"It’s time to put patient safety ahead of the bottom line – a Labour Government will put patient safety at the very heart of our plans for the NHS."
Mr Ashworth said "squeezed budgets" in the NHS had "left patients increasingly at risk", warning that work to ensure safe staffing had been "started and then abandoned, because the Tories refused to resource the workforce improvements that were needed."
The Labour frontbencher also took aim at his opposite number Matt Hancock, who has come under fire for endorsing the 'GP at Hand' app - despite the service still being subject to an independent evaluation funded by the NHS.
Mr Ashworth said: "What’s more, there is a huge threat to patient safety from the Health Secretary's rush to endorse privately run, online GP services without proper mechanisms in place to protect patients.
"There are serious questions to be answered about why he is going out his way to endorse this private service which has been so roundly criticised on safety grounds by actual doctors."
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