Clause16 - entry and inspection of premises
NHS Reform & Health Care Professions Bill
9:30 am
Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
That question applies not only to inspections by patients forums, but, importantly, to quality control inspections such as those carried out by the Commission for Health Improvement. We touched on that issue earlier. The Bill was never intended to cover quality assurance and community participation because it was drafted long before the latest panic measure of exporting patients—shortly followed by staff—to Europe. There is no definition to which I can refer that would be wide enough to cover all the options that the Government are currently dreaming up.
None of us wants patients to wait longer than they need to, but the Government must think carefully about the areas in which they want NHS patients treated so that those patients will be adequately covered by quality assurance measures, the reach of civil litigation for negligence and the duty and right of patients forums to inspect those systems and input to them. The Minister described extensively—perhaps even eloquently—her vision of public participation in every area of NHS care. However, the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) raised an interesting point about what sort of patient and public involvement there can be in those settings.
I do not want to be distracted from the point, which concerns the definition of premises. Having found the correct part of the Health Act 1999, I recognise that the definition suggested in this amendment—which I stress is a probing amendment—is more limited than the one it seeks to replace. I am unsure how that happened, but it was almost certainly a function of drafting the amendment late at night while examining many different definitions of premises. Will the areas listed in the clause include private health care providers whose premises are covered by the regulations that apply to the Commission for Health Improvement where it has been given the right to inspect premises?
I should have prefaced my comments by saying that during the last sitting, we had a heated debate about the Government's intentions. Liberal Democrat Members argued that there was no need to abolish community health councils and that the Government's proposals for patients forums were flawed.