Liberal Democrat Voice » newsnight

Norman Lamb, Newsnight and Jeremy Paxman’s bedpan

Caron Lindsay — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:54:32 +0000

Liberal Democrat Health Minister Norman Lamb wrote about the Government’s response to the Francis Report for this site yesterday. Later he was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight. Paxman started by asking how long it would take before the NHS is fit for purpose.

Norman replied:

We have to recognise that a lot of fantastic work goes on in the NHS

Most people who work in health and care do so because they want to care for people

We shouldn’t denigrate NHS because of what’s happened in this one report, but anyone who cares passionately about the NHS has to face up the failings and recognise there are significant challenges to be taken seriously. It will take time.

Staffing levels

Challenged on whether there were sufficient nurses in the NHS:

There will be some hospitals who have made poor decisions about the levels of staffing in their hospitals. That’s why it’s so important that they are held to account. That’s why it’s so important to introduce the Chief Inspector of Hospitals who can identify where these bad decisions have been made and require change.

Duty of candour

Norman confirmed that an organisation failing to admit to mistakes will be breaking the criminal law.

It will apply to the organisation and we’ve brought in Don Berwick, probably the world’s leading expert on patient safety to report back to us on how we achieve a culture of zero harm in our health service. Let’s wait for what he says before we decide whether to apply it to individuals.

When staff fail…

How many staff would have been found wanting in Mid Staffordshire, asked Paxman

The failings identified in MS should mean in my view that in circumstances such as that that the managers responsible should not be able to retain their jobs and should not work in the NHS again. That’s why we are introducing a barring scheme for senior managers who have been identified as being responsible for serious failings of care.

Minsters on the wards

The interview ended with this exchange on Ministers and civil servants doing frontline work on the wards.

JP: You also say that, as part of coming to understand NHS, senior civil servants and minsters will be doing frontline work in the NHS. Does that mean there are some viewers watching tonight who might find you emptying their bedpan.

NL: That might be a scary prospect, Jeremy, and, of course I will work. It’s really important to do this not in a blaze of publicity but for ministers and civil servants to experience what it’s like on the front line. I will do it straight away. I’m not delaying on this. It’s the right thing to do.

JP: So there could be viewers who could have you emptying your bedpan?

NL: There could be Jeremy, how would you feel about that?

JP: I’d be decidedly in two minds, I think.

NL: I think I could manage to empty your bedpan

JP: Thanks very much. I’ll look forward to that.

NL: It’s a pleasure.

On a serious note, I do wonder, though, whether managers would allow ministers to see what goes on in a chronically understaffed ward, where nurses are under constant pressure to admit more parents they have neither the room nor the staff to cope with. If this exercise is to mean anything, surely they should ask the local nursing staff where they should go to see the problems at their worst.

You can see the whole interview here.

* Caron Lindsay is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings

BBC: Let’s get this in proportion

Paul Walter — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 07:53:04 +0000

Michael Portillo was on ITV Daybreak this morning talking about a “disaster” and, even, a “catastrophe” at the BBC.

I think it’s time for us all to lie down in a darkened room for a few hours with some smelling salts.

Newsnight made a mistake. It seems to have occurred because the replacement management structure (pending the Jimmy Savile enquiry) was rather weak. This mistake was in a similar league to the newspapers hounding the entirely innocent Chris Jeffries in Bristol, for which I don’t remember any resignations. Making inferences about the BBC management structure from the Newsnight/North Wales story is not really a valid exercise. The senior person who made the decision appears to have been the head of Radio Five Live (standing in for normal managers who were recused from the process because of the Savile enquiries).

The previous Newsnight mistake was to kill a story about Jimmy Savile. Doing so did not result in a single child being abused. No criminal charges will result because of this editorial decision, which is in sharp contrast to the News of the World hacking debacle.

Now we hear, surprise, surprise, that someone with a long career at the BBC, whose career exploded over this crisis, received a large pay-off. OK, that’s a valid subject for debate. Half of the pay off was contractual. The other half was supposed to be to pay George Entwhistle to co-operate with two enquiries. £225,000 to co-operate with two inquiries seems a bit steep. The BBC Trust’s generosity may spring from the fact that George Entwhistle’s resignation did not follow some egregious misdeed on his part.

But all this is a “catastrophe” in a similar way that it was a “catastrophe” to employ Michael Portillo to present “Great British Railway Journies”. No one has died. No one has committed a crime. Not one single child has been abused by Newsnight or the BBC management.

While all this rather exaggerated BBC bashing is going on, the whole subject of child abuse and the tragedy of the victims is taking a back seat.

* Paul Walter is a LibDem activist in Newbury, Berkshire and blogs at Liberal Burblings

Laws and Hughes up pressure on Osborne to cut taxes for the lowest paid

Nick Thornsby — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:58:48 +0000

Yesterday’s Independent on Sunday carried the news that Lib Dem MPs will this week step up the pressure on the chancellor, George Osborne, to move more quickly to raise the income tax personal allowance to £10,000. This follows Nick Clegg’s speech last month in which he called publicly for the upcoming budget to go faster than previously anticipated in implementing the policy.

As the Indy reports:

This week the Lib Dems will mount a major campaign to persuade Mr Osborne to agree to a sharp increase in the allowance. Simon Hughes, the party’s deputy leader, has urged all members and activists to back an e-petition calling for the Government to go further and faster. David Laws returns to the political front line on BBC2′s Newsnight, and Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, will use a party political broadcast on Wednesday to demand “faster tax cuts funded by increasing the amount paid by the richest”.

Many will have guessed that this is one of the issues David Laws has been working on in an unofficial capacity – just look at the written Parliamentary questions he’s been asking over the last few months – given the need to fund the measure (the Independent also reported that the party has come up with £16bn worth of funding ideas, including limiting tax relief on pension contributions and a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2m).

You can catch Laws talking about the policy on tonight’s Newsnight (BBC2, 10.30pm).

* Nick Thornsby is Thursday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs here.

LDVideo: Danny Alexander on the Coalition’s economic record

Stephen Tall — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:10:36 +0000

Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander was grilled by BBC Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman on Wednesday night about the UK’s negative growth figures — here’s what Danny had to say about the Coalition’s economic strategy:

(Available on the BBC website here.)

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.