00:00 My thoughts and sympathies are with the families who have lost babies or had babies injured
00:08 and the unbelievable heartbreak that they have been through and must be going through.
00:13 I think it's unimaginably hard to lose a baby or have a baby injured in any circumstances,
00:21 but clearly in these circumstances it's just hard to find the words to express what it must be like.
00:27 So my thoughts are with them and actually also with the staff at the Countess of Chester hospital
00:33 who must also be hugely affected by what has happened.
00:37 Now you asked me about the inquiry and the important thing here is that something like
00:44 this must never happen again and of course the NHS must learn lessons.
00:48 That's why the government is launching an inquiry to make sure that all the lessons that can be
00:54 learned will be learned and that all possible action is taken so that this can never happen
01:01 again. I particularly asked about the question about statutory versus non-statutory. One of the
01:07 things here is actually to make sure that this can be done at pace, action taken quickly and a
01:13 non-statutory inquiry is one that can happen more quickly and be more flexible to answer the
01:18 questions that need to be answered. I think this is one of the really shocking things that happened
01:25 is as you say that doctors repeatedly raised their concerns and that didn't lead to the action being
01:33 taken that you would have expected. This is one of the things that clearly the inquiry I think
01:39 should look into, that the chair of that inquiry will set the scope of it but that's definitely
01:45 something where there are questions to be answered. It's crucial that when any member of staff in
01:52 hospital raises concerns and whistleblows that they should be both supported in doing that and listened to.
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