To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 30 March 2009, Official Report, column 900W, on NHS: death rate, for what reasons 43 of the alerts in the first year were not followed up. (269060)

The Care Quality Commission, which took over from the Healthcare Commission on 1 April 2009, has informed us that the reasons why 43 of the alerts that the Healthcare Commission considered where not followed up with the trusts concerned are set out in table 2 on page 18 of the Healthcare Commission’s report “Following up mortality ‘outliers’,” which is published at:

www.cqc.org.uk/_db/_documents/Following_up_mortality_outliers_200903244704.pdf