GOOD AFTERNOON and after a brief hiatus where I got distracted trying to become Prime Minister (not a line I can write every week) welcome back to my patient safety update which of course has topics that should matter to any future PM. This week we look at last week’s Select Committee session on the future of General Practice, the new Health Secretary’s first parliamentary question time, the Women’s Health Strategy for England and the appointment of the first ever Patient Safety Commissioner.

FUTURE OF GENERAL PRACTICE Last Tuesday the Select Committee quizzed the new Minister responsible for General Practice, James Morris MP, together with Dr Nikki Kanani the Medical Director of Primary Care in NHS England and Dr Amanda Doyle, Director of Primary Care, NHS England. Frustratingly there was the usual puff in support of the principle of continuity of care without any real suggestion anyone would do anything about it. NHS bigwigs have perfected the art of killing you by agreeing with everything you say! The new Minister did suggest that targets should be ‘evaluated’ but I didn’t detect any great appetite amongst officials to removing the oppressive welter of micro-management that QOF has become. We did at least get a clear answer that there was no policy to scrap the partnership model for GPs which was a welcome change to suggestions made by the previous Health Secretary.

CONTINUITY CONTINUES Having pressed the new Minister on the issue I decided to use Steve Barclay’s first appearance in Health Questions yesterday to get his view on continuity of care. He reminded me that he is always interested in data and therefore promised to look at the Norway study that shows such significant patient benefits to seeing the same doctor over a long period of time. The evidence is compelling so I’m hopeful he’ll pick up the baton on this one – I’ll certainly keep pushing. On Monday in his statement regarding the pressures Ambulance trusts are under I also raised the issue of social care reform and urged him to finally finish the job on social care reform with a properly funded ten year plan. Don’t hold your breath.

COMMISSIONER HUGHES Last week the Health Secretary confirmed the appointment of Dr Henrietta Hughes as England’s first ever Patient Safety Commissioner. The Select Committee had earlier approved her appointment but I warned that the post needs sufficient resources to do its job properly and clear metrics to define what success looks like. Henrietta Hughes was a brilliant first National Guardian responsible for the successful roll out of the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian programme we now have across the NHS. If the job is properly defined I am sure she will do it excellently.

WOMEN’S HEALTH STRATEGY has been published this morning and includes mandatory training for all medical students to ensure they can diagnose and treat female health conditions, £10m for 25 mobile breast screening units and the introduction of a “pregnancy loss certificate” to recognise parents who have lost a child before 24 weeks. Long overdue and something positive even though it probably won’t get noticed given what else is happening.

LEARNING DISABILITY AND AUTISM The government also announced a package of support for people with learning disabilities and/or autism and a pledge to reduce the number of such people “in specialist inpatient care by 50% by March 2024 compared with March 2015”. That’s a start but we need to commit to getting everyone out of these facilities which would happen if we adopted the Trieste model which the government continues to reject.

COVID LATEST. Things look worrying but the lights are flashing amber rather than red. The government has accepted the JCVI advice that all people aged over 50 will be eligible for a fourth booster vaccine in the autumn. Covid cases continue to rise with the ONS reporting that 1 in 19 people in England in the week ending 15th July had the virus. The dashboard data for the last 7 days isn’t great either as cases have increased 25%, hospitalisations up 18% and deaths up 33%.

THE PLUG Why not forward this email to a friend and get them to sign up here? You will be helping patient safety messages reach the parts other emails do not…and help me on my post Tory leadership mission to reduce avoidable harm and death!

Jeremy Hunt