Government response to Health and Social Care Committee’s Expert Panel evaluation on patient safety

The Health and Social Care Committee has today published the Government's response to the Committee's Independent Expert Panel's evaluation of the Government's progress on meeting patient safety recommendations.

In March 2024, the Expert Panel published its evaluation of the Government's implementation of five recommendations relating to patient safety, that Government had accepted from independent inquiries and reviews. 

The recommendations were made by public inquiries or safety reviews, including the 2015 Morecambe Bay Investigation and the 2013 Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry. The Panel's evaluation covered the areas of maternity care and leadership, training of staff in health and social care and culture around patient safety and whistleblowing.

The Expert Panel report rated the Government's overall progress in implementing recommendations on patient safety as ‘requires improvement'.   

One of the recommendations the Panel assessed the Government's progress against was on maternity safety. The Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee has written to the Secretary of State, to follow up on the Government's response on this issue.

In response to the maternity safety recommendation, the Government's response states that “The Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Justice jointly consulted on proposals to provide coroners with new powers to investigate term stillbirths in 2019. In 2023, a factual summary of responses to the consultation was published. The Government will provide an update on next steps in due course.” 

In her letter, the Chair of the Committee, Layla Moran MP, asks “given the time that has passed since the initial consultation, could you please set out a date by when a further update will be provided”. The letter also asks for an update on the Government's policy position on giving coroners new powers to investigate term stillbirths.

ENDS

Notes to editors

• The Expert Panel's March 2024 evaluation on patient safety is available here.
• The Government's response to the Panel's evaluation is available here. 
• The Committee Chair's letter is available here.

The Independent Expert Panel is a politically impartial panel of experts, and it conducts evaluations independently of the Committee of the Government's work in different areas of health and social care policy. The Chair of the Panel is Professor Dame Jane Dacre.