By Vivienne Russell | 19 November 2013
Senior NHS managers will be required to pass a ‘fit and proper person’ test, the Department of Health announced today as it published its full response to the Francis report.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the reforms arising from Robert Francis's investigation into care failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust would make the health service more open, accountable and focused on safety and compassion.
On steps to improve the quality of senior management, the DoH’s response stated: ‘We agree that the public have the right to expect that people in leading positions in NHS organisations are fit and proper persons; and that where it is demonstrated that a person is not fit and proper, they should not be able to occupy such a position.’
However, the NHS Confederation warned that detail of how the scheme would work was critical. ‘We must avoid any increase in the “blame game”, which Robert Francis warned against,’ said the confederation’s policy director Johnny Marshall.
‘Good leadership is essential for quality patient care and it is right that managers, just like clinicians, should face the consequences if they are not up to the job. However, as well as rooting out poor leadership, we need to highlight the good work that occurs every day, and recognise the challenges leaders face, particularly in the most troubled organisations.’
As well as the ‘fit and proper person’ test, the government will bring in a new criminal offence of wilful neglect.
Monthly reports on ward-by-ward staffing levels will be mandated, as will quarterly reporting of complaints data and lessons learned by trusts.
Health care providers are to be given a statutory duty of candour, while changes to professional codes will bring in a professional duty of candour for individuals.
Hunt said: ‘Today’s measures are a blueprint for restoring trust in the NHS, reinforcing professional pride in NHS frontline staff and above all giving confidence to patients.
‘I want every patient in every hospital to have confidence that they will be given the best and safest care and the way to do that is to be completely open and transparent.’
Commenting on the DoH response, Andy McKeon, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, said there was a risk that the new initiatives would have a centralising effect, taking responsibility and accountability away from local bodies.
‘Transparency will only work as a tool to improve care when it is clear who should be held to account for the outcomes it reveals,’ he said.
‘As it implements these changes, the government must communicate clear lines of responsibility, and balance its own role in holding the NHS to account with the need to avoid micro-management.’
