Clause 13 - Commission for health improvement: inspections and investigations
NHS Reform & Health Care Professions
4:45 pm
Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
I have looked through the amendments. I am clearly experiencing a mental block, but I should be grateful if the Minister would explain in what way they do not imply that CHI's powers to report on NHS bodies to the Secretary of State will not apply to private bodies that provide health care for which NHS bodies or service providers have responsibility. I struggle to follow how the distinction comes about.
Will the Minister clarify the position on patients treated within the NHS estate but as private patients? Has that position changed? Is the NHS body—the hospital in which those patients are treated—responsible only if the patients are treated by NHS staff, or also if the wing is managed by the chief executive, or even if it is in the same curtilage but has a different management because there is a separate subsisting private hospital in the NHS grounds? The subject has been raised before, but it will be even more important to clarify it when we consider what the Government intend in terms of reporting the relevant bodies and providers to the Secretary of State.
In light of this morning's announcement about a privately managed hospital contracting for NHS work and presumably still being responsible to its shareholders, I should be grateful if the Minister would say whether that will be covered simply by virtue of the contractual relationship. The relevant body would not appear to be the NHS within the hospital, but the hospital doing its own thing for the NHS by means of a contract, service agreement or whatever the new jargon is.