New patient safety commissioner must have sufficient resources, ministers told

Scottish ministers have been told to “make sure there is enough resource” when a patient safety commissioner is appointed.

The Scottish Government has brought forward legislation to set up the new role, with Health Secretary Humza Yousaf saying the person appointed will be a “champion, independent of the NHS or Government, who will look out for the safety of people getting healthcare in Scotland”.

Baroness Julia Cumberlege, who produced a report which led to the establishment of a similar position in England, stressed the importance of providing the commissioner with sufficient resources.

Speaking to MSPs on Holyrood’s Health Committee, Baroness Cumberlege said: “Just a word of caution, make sure there is enough resource.

“I think it is critical that the patient safety commissioner you appoint has sufficient resources to do the job.

“I think we didn’t pay enough attention to that.”

Henrietta Hughes, who was appointed as the first patient safety commissioner for England in July 2022, is “very good at negotiating”, Baroness Cumberlege told the MSPs.

She added this means “she is managing to get more resources, more staff, because at the moment she has only got four members of staff”.

She continued: “Actually I think this role needs a good deal more, because people have to look at the data, they have to examine what is going on, they have got to look across the whole piece. That is going to require some more people of great talent and integrity.”

In 2018, Baroness Cumberlege was tasked with leading an independent review on how the health service in England had responded to concerns from patients.

Her work focused on three areas – concerns over the use of pelvic mesh; the anti-epilepsy drug sodium valproate, which has been linked to physical malformations, autism and developmental delay in children when taken by their mothers during pregnancy; and hormone pregnancy tests such as Primodos, which are thought to be associated with birth defects and miscarriages.

Her report, published in July 2020, told how patients were “dismissed” and “overlooked”, and led directly to the appointment of the patient safety commissioner for England.

With the Scottish Government now having brought forward plans to establish a similar role in the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill, Baroness Cumberlege described the proposals as “really comprehensive”.

She told the committee: “I have read the proposed Bill you are going to be putting forward to the Scottish Parliament, and I must say I agree with all of it. I think it is extremely well put together, it is much more detailed and prescriptive than what we have been doing.”

But she insisted: “There must be enough resource to make the job doable and effective and that people will respect what is going on.”