Charles Walker calls on the Secretary of State for Health to intervene in health trusts where the chief executives are incompetent.

Mr. Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): We must not be sidetracked in this debate by the question of whether cleaning is done in-house or out of house. This is a failure in leadership of monstrous proportions. This chief executive was either a monster or an incompetent-probably an incompetent. A number of chief executives in this country are not performing, and when they do not perform people die. I urge the Secretary of State to intervene where chief executives are failing, before more people needlessly die from preventable illnesses.

Alan Johnson: That is an important point that we need to look at. If the hon. Gentleman remembers, the document on the constitutional changes that the Prime Minister announced shortly after taking over had a clause on how we make such appointments. We should not take them back to the centre, but we need to ensure proper accountability throughout the system. In particular and as the hon. Gentleman suggests, we should be spotting these issues much earlier and getting rid of incompetent chief executives or chairpersons who, fortunately, are in the minority, rather than waiting for a report such as this, by which time, frankly, most of the damage has been done.

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