Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2016-07-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will instigate an inquiry into the past management of the South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust.

Mr Philip Dunne

The Department’s attention was first drawn to issues in relation to South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAMB) NHS Foundation Trust’s NHS 111 service in autumn 2015.

In March 2015, NHS England convened a risk summit meeting involving all partners following the suspension by SECAMB of their unofficial call-handling project. NHS England commissioned an external investigation which was published on 5 November 2015, while an initial report was shared with families involved with the SECAMB’s project in September 2015.

Monitor, the then independent regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts (now part of NHS Improvement), announced on 28 October 2015 that it was taking action against SECAMB. Monitor’s requirements included the development of three reviews. The first; a forensic review of the project itself undertaken by Deloitte was published on 15 March 2016. Second, the Trust has commissioned an independent expert to lead a patient impact review following the call-handling project, which will be finalised shortly. Third, the Trust is required to undertake a full governance review and this will take place once the substantive board is in place.

In the meantime NHS Improvement are working closely with the Trust to support it in addressing known governance, operational and quality issues.

The Government has no plans to set up an inquiry.