Accountability Of West Midlands Regional Health Authority

EDM number 1492 in 1992-93, proposed by Richard Burden on 01/03/1993.

That this House notes that following the resignation of Sir James Ackers as Chair of the West Midlands Regional Health Authority, the new Chair, Sir Donald Wilson, promised greater openness but that there has been little evidence of this happening, that regional health authority management has, since December 1992, been in possession of an Audit Commission report setting out progress on a number of investigations, that this report is not confidential but that, despite requests for its immediate publication from honourable Members, the regional health authority is delaying its release for three months, that the KPMG Peat Marwick investigation into the South Birmingham health cash crisis has still not been released and there is no indication of when the details of investigations into the Healthtrac and Qa scandals will be made public, that honourable Members have been denied access to such information, and that the two major initiatives which Ministers have undertaken in the West Midlands Health Authority recently appears to have been to grant Sir James Ackers a pay off of ú10,000 and to authorise the closure of hospitals against the wishes of local people; and calls on the Secretary of State for Health to respect the views of people in the West Midlands by publishing the document requested by honourable Members and by commissioning a public inquiry.

This motion has been signed by a total of 60 MPs.