Clause 18 - Supplementary
NHS Reform & Health Care Professions Bill
3:00 pm
Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
This is an important group of amendments, designed to probe and to raise concerns that the current arrangements, particularly for oversight and scrutiny, are not as they might be. The Health and Social Care Act 2001 and the Local Government Act 2000 were predicated on a wider change. However, with the onset of the general election—on which we all look back with relief and pleasure—some aspects of legislation had to be dropped for the time being, so there may be omissions. I know that the Under-Secretary will have studied the matters carefully and I hope that she will be able to reassure hon. Members who share my views about them.
Amendment No. 217 would insert into the supplementary provisions in clause 18 an additional paragraph, and some of the words in the amendment are lifted from another part of the Bill. One of the important functions of community health councils is the ability to ensure that there is scrutiny of local decision-making. I will speak later with regard to whether overview and scrutiny committees have the relevant powers and duties to make the appropriate referrals. However, the first point I want to make explicit is that regulations should be provided for the referral of these matters to overview and scrutiny committees.
By misfortune rather than by design, I do not think that there is any problem in recognising which overview and scrutiny committee is relevant for each area. Indeed, there are arrangements for joint committees where required, and clearly some primary care trust patients forums will overlap more than one overview and scrutiny committee. That will not be a significant difficulty as regards the amendment.
The people already involved in the matter recognise that this amendment would allow patients forums to refer matters to relevant overview and scrutiny committees, and to strategic health authorities. As the Government would have it, patients forums would have first-hand knowledge of services, and should be able to put issues of concern on the agenda of overview and scrutiny committees. The second amendment in this group is amendment No. 219, which is consequential. Amendment No. 219 would insert into line 43 the need to have relevant regulations regarding membership. There may well be other members of the Committee who have strong views on those issues.
Amendment No. 220 again talks about membership. I am sure that the hon. Member for Wyre Forest will speak in his customary style, which is brief and to the point, on these matters.