Author of gov review forms group to fight ‘woeful’ DHSC response

A Tory peer has attacked the Department of Health and Social Care’s ‘woeful’ response to the patient safety review she authored and has revealed she intends to create a cross-party group to force action.

Baroness Julia Cumberlege - who led the “First Do No Harm” report on device and medicine safety– has said she has “not had a whisper” from the department over the report’s key recommendations since it was published in July.

She told HSJ’s Patient Safety Congress she is setting up a cross-party parliamentary group to “pressure” the department to adopt the report’s recommendations.

The report arose from The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, which spoke to more than 700 people, mostly women, who suffered avoidable harm from surgical mesh implants, pregnancy tests and the anti-epileptic drug sodium valproate.

The report discovered “a culture of dismissive and arrogant attitudes” including the unacceptable labelling of many symptoms as “attributable to ‘women’s problems’”. It concluded that the NHS has “either lost sight of the interests of all those it was set up to serve or does not know how best to do this.”

Health and social care secretary Matt Hancock and minister Nadine Dorries have apologised to the women who were harmed but the department has so far not responded to the report’s other eight recommendations in detail.

Baroness Cumberlege said the cross party group would “[try] to open up a firmly shut departmental door. A department that doesn’t seem to get it.” She said: “We have been disappointed [in the department’s response] because we hoped by now we would have some sort of inclination about what’s going on."

“The response from the department on the other key recommendations has been woeful. The reason they give is ‘there is a terrible amount of work to do’”.

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Source: HSJ, 11 November 2020