Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, following
the statement in the House of Commons about the 700,000 patient letters lost by
NHS Shared Business Services, has today written to Jeremy Hunt to demand
further assurances for the public and said:

“The statement contained no reassurance that you had got to the
bottom of what happened in the first place.

“You repeatedly blamed the problem on contractors but failed to
acknowledge that this error was committed by a company part owned by your
Department, over a period of several years during your time as Secretary of
State.

“How on earth did it happen that NHS Shared Business Services,
failed to send so many letters and instead just left them lying in a warehouse?
How much money and staff time has been wasted by this incident?

“Patients and their families will need much more reassurance that
the Government actually has a plan to make sure this never happens again.”

Ends

Notes to editors

·         In
Section 12 of the NHS SBS Standard Purchase Terms and Conditions it clearly
states that there should be regular updates including of data breaches – “12.3.1
have a named person able to communicate with NHS SBS, who will take the lead
for information governance and from whom NHS SBS and the Client shall receive
regular reports on information governance matters, including but not limited to
details of all incidents of data loss and breach of confidence”

Full Sopra Steria Terms and
Conditions here: http://www.soprasteria.co.uk/docs/librariesprovider41/Policy/nhs-sbs-standard-terms-and-conditions-v2-jan2015

·         Full
text of Jonathan Ashworth letter to Jeremy Hunt below.

Dear Jeremy

Follow up letter on NHS Shared
Business Services

Thank you for your response to the Urgent
Question in this House this afternoon about the 700,000 letter undelivered by
NHS Shared Business Services between 2011 and 2016. The public will be relieved
to hear that, through sheer luck, no incidents of patient care have yet been
identified. However it is enormously frustrating that you had to be forced to
the House to give this update. Will you commit to publishing the advice you
received on which basis you chose not to make the details of this incident
clear at an earlier date?

The statement contained no reassurance
that you had got to the bottom of what happened in the first place. You
repeatedly blamed the problem on contractors but failed to acknowledge that
this error was committed by a company part owned by your Department, over a
period of several years during your time as Secretary of State. How on earth
did it happen that NHS SBS failed to send so many letters and instead just left
them lying in a warehouse? How much money and staff time has been wasted by
this incident? Patients and their families will need much more reassurance that
the Government actually has a plan to make sure this never happens again.

Who
in your Department was responsible for keeping a watch on this company? Sopra
Steria’s contract for delivering the NHS SBS service states: “NHS SBS and the
Client shall receive regular reports on information governance matters,
including all incidents of data loss.” How often did you receive updates about
the work of this company part owned by his Department, as required under the
contract signed by Sopra Steria? Will you publish these updates? Will you
publish any reports relating to data loss which were received by NHS SBS or
your Department since 2011?

Your initial statement last July said the
problem was limited to three areas of the country – South West England, East
Midlands, and North East London – will you commit to publishing a full
breakdown of the whereabouts of the patients who were affected, as promised to
Members today? What guarantees can you offer about the delivery of letters to
patients in other parts of the country?

Where was this warehouse where all these
letters were lying undelivered, and had anyone from your Department been there
during the years 2011 to 2016? What guarantees can you give that no further
warehouses of undelivered patient letters are yet to be discovered? Were these
all the letters that NHS SBS were commissioned to deliver during this time or
only a part of them? Were NHS SBS paid for the delivery of these letters, and
if so will this money be recovered? What action are you taking to address this
astonishing waste of public funds on your watch? Has an apology been offered to
the NHS staff, both in hospitals and GP surgeries, whose time and effort has
been wasted by this case?

Finally will you commit to returning to
the House once your enquiry is finally completed to update the house on the
final cost and impact for patients, and to explain what measures you are
putting in place to make sure an incident like this never happens again?

Yours sincerely

Jonathan

Jonathan Ashworth

Shadow Secretary of State for Health

Ministers have begun work on a new Internet Safety Strategy aimed at making Britain the safest country in the world for children and young people to be online.

Culture Secretary Karen Bradley is leading the new cross-Government drive on behalf of the Prime Minister – with a green paper expected in the summer.

A report by leading academic Professor Sonia Livingstone has been commissioned to provide up to date evidence of how young people are using the internet, the dangers they face, and the gaps that exist in keeping them safe.

Ministers will also hold a series of round tables in the coming weeks with social media companies, technology firms, young people, charities and mental health experts to examine online risks and how to tackle them.

The work is expected to centre on four main priorities: how to help young people help themselves; helping parents face up the dangers and discuss them with children; industry’s responsibilities to society; and how technology can help provide solutions.

The focus will be on preventing children and young people from harm online and making the internet a safer place.

The round tables are also expected to examine concerns around issues like trolling and other aggressive behaviour including rape threats against women.

They will involve ministers and officials from departments across Government including the Home Office, Department for Education, Department of Health and Ministry of Justice as part of a co-ordinated effort to make the internet safer.

It comes amid growing fears that the threat from online dangers has grown far more quickly than society’s response to them, and worries that tech-savvy young people are being exposed to risks that their parents never were and might not know how to confront – like sexting, cyber bullying, and content which promotes self-harm, suicide and eating disorders.

A recent poll found more parents were concerned about sexting than about their children drinking or smoking. The YouGov survey for the PSHE association showed 78% were either fairly or very concerned about sexting, compared to 69% who concerned about alcohol misuse and 67% who were concerned about smoking.

A study last year for the NSPCC and Children’s Commissioner found 13% of 11 to 16 year-olds reported that they had taken topless pictures of themselves and 3% had taken fully naked pictures of themselves. 
 More than one in 10 young people say they have been the victim of cyber bullying, and self-harm among children is on the rise amid evidence of a link between internet use and an increased risk of self harm.

Karen Bradley, Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, said: 

The internet has provided young people with amazing opportunities but has also introduced a host of new dangers which children and parents have never faced before.


It is increasingly clear that some behaviours which are unacceptable offline are being tolerated or even encouraged online – sometimes with devastating consequences.

“We are determined to make Britain the safest place in the world to be online, and to help people protect themselves from the risks they might face.



To do that we want to understand the full scale of the problem and explore how everyone – including Government, social media companies, technology firms, parents and others  – can play their part in tackling it.

This new work builds on a range of Government initiatives around internet safety, including the Home Office’s world-leading efforts to combat to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse.

In December, Home Office minister Baroness Shields was appointed the PM’s Special Representative on Internet Crime and Harms, with an international focus on internet safety and security working with global technology companies and other governments to protect UK citizens. As part of the move, Department for Culture Media and Sport Minister Tracey Crouch took on responsibility for domestic online safety.



It also comes as the Department of Health is developing a green paper on children and young persons’ mental health, expected in the Autumn and measures in the Digital Economy Bill currently going through Parliament will introduce age checks for pornographic websites so under-18s cannot view harmful content – with powers to block sites which refuse to comply.

Sonia Livingstone is a professor of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics. Her empirical work examines the risks and opportunities from digital technologies, including for children and young people. She serves on the Executive Board of the UK’s Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) and has advised various Government departments and public bodies

Planned new and ongoing road improvements over the coming week.

The Cabinet Secretary made the announcement on a visit to the Cardiff International White Water Centre, where South Wales Fire and Rescue Service personnel were undertaking water rescue training and gave a demonstration of rescues from vehicles in water, inflatable sled rescues and swift water boat rescues. 

Whilst Fire and Rescue Authorities already respond to flooding and inland water rescue incidents using their existing general powers and resources, they are not required to do so. The Cabinet Secretary has therefore signed an Order which will create a statutory duty on the three Fire and Rescue Authorities in Wales to respond to such incidents. 

To support the introduction of the new duty, funding has been made available to replace ageing flooding and water rescue equipment, and to purchase a second high volume pump in North Wales. 

The Cabinet Secretary said,

“The demonstration of water rescue skills here today clearly shows the dedication and professionalism of our firefighters. As a result of their excellent work, we have been hugely successful in reducing the risk of fire in Wales. 

“Flooding can be just as hazardous as fire, and more wide-ranging. It can devastate whole communities, threaten widespread casualties, and destroy property and the environment.  We need to be sure that our fire services will be ready to respond – and our firefighters need to know what is expected of them. This is why I have created a new duty on our fire and rescue services to respond to flooding or water rescue incidents which pose a direct threat of death or injury. 

“They also need the equipment to do this safely and effectively. I am therefore also pleased to announce an extra £1.8 million over this financial year and the next, to enhance and update the boats, pumps and protective gear that our fire services need.” 

South Wales Fire and Rescue Service’s Chief Fire Officer, Huw Jakeway said:

“It was a pleasure to welcome the Cabinet Secretary to Cardiff International White Water and for him to see our dedicated crews in action, as part of their ongoing training programme when it comes to water rescues. For us as Fire and Rescue Services in Wales, keeping our communities and firefighters safe in and around the water has always been a priority and the new funding for equipment, over the next two financial years, will enable us to continue to serve our communities to the highest standard.”

Labour
hold emergency business roundtable to discuss business rates “ticking time
bomb”

Senior
Labour politicians met today with representatives from ten major business
organisations to discuss the mounting business rates crisis.

New
rates are due to kick in on 1^st April but thousands of businesses
are unsure whether they will be able to pay.

Labour
joined forces with businesses to put pressure on the Government to provide emergency
transitional relief for struggling businesses in the budget next week. They
also agreed to begin an ongoing dialogue about how to fundamentally reform
business rates in the longer run.

The
meeting followed Labour’s earlier announcement of a five point plan for
business rates, which is intended to help businesses through this difficult
period, and develop a system of business taxation that is fairer on businesses
and local communities alike.

Labour’s
Five Point Plan for Business Rates:

1.     
Set up an emergency transitional relief fund for businesses facing “cliff edge”
increases in their rates, and revise the appeals process to ensure businesses
get a swift and fair hearing

2.     
Bring forward CPI indexation so that businesses aren’t paying more because of
how inflation is measured

3.     
Exclude new investment in plant and machinery from future business rates
valuation

4.     
Introduce more regular valuations in law to stop businesses facing periodic,
unmanageable hikes

5.      Fundamental
reform of the business rates system to ease the burden on traditional high
streets and town centres in the age of online shopping; support the traditional
fabric of our communities, including community pubs and incentivising free cash
machines; and create a fairer system of business taxation.

Rebecca
Long-Bailey, Shadow Business Secretary, said:

“We’ve
called this emergency meeting with business organisations today because time is
running out to save our local businesses and we need to keep the pressure on.

It’s
clear that there is a way out of this crisis, the question is whether the
Government are going to take it.”

Jim
McMahon, Shadow Minister for Local Government, said:

“Our
town centres and high streets are already struggling – and this latest hike in
rates threatens to send many businesses under. Small businesses in particular
need far more support than the Government is currently offering.”

“This
business rate revaluation has exposed the inherent flaws in this antiquated and
unfair system. That’s why we are calling for a full review of business rates.
The Government must move towards a system which works for businesses, and their
local communities.”

Mike
Cherry, National Chairman at the Federation of Small Businesses, said:

“Business rates are an
outdated tax. FSB is keen for all political parties to help those small firms
hardest hit by the current revaluation, and to start to focus on fundamental
longer-term reform of business rates to make sure it’s fair for small firms. It
is incredibly important to support small businesses and the self-employed so
they don’t face shock tax rises, so we are delighted to take part in the
roundtable.”

Andrew
Silvester, Head of Campaigns & Deputy Director of Policy at the Institute
of Directors said:

“It’s hugely
important that politicians on all sides look for constructive ways to reform
business rates. This is a 20th century system and in a 21st century economy it
looks painfully out of date.”

Christopher
Richards, Senior Business Environment Policy Adviser at the Engineering
Employers Federation, said:

“Establishing the principle that plant
and machinery has no place in the business rates system is an important first
step for all political actors to take, this is the top priority action for
industry. The inclusion of plant and machinery in business rates bills
represents a tax on productive investment and undermines the international
competitiveness of UK manufacturing. Excluding future investments from being
taxed is therefore a significant step in the right direction, is consistent
with the government’s industrial strategy aims and if enacted would give some
confidence to manufacturers about the likely post-Brexit investment environment
in the UK.”