Clause 43 - Information and advice
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
10:00 am
Mr Simon Burns (West Chelmsford, Conservative)
The amendment deals with the beginning of clause 43, which refers to the general functions of CHAI, and to the information, advice and instructions laid down for it.
In relation to clause 43(1), the amendment seeks to ensure not that CHAI must keep the appropriate authority informed on the provision of health care, but that it should make regular reports available to the public on the information that it gathers and the reports that it produces. In this subsection, the appropriate body in England is the Secretary of State; in Wales it is the National Assembly for Wales. The amendment would improve the Bill because it would make the process much more transparent. I have no problems, in the context of the Government's intentions, with CHAI keeping the appropriate authorities informed.
However, I do not see why it cannot go one step beyond the appropriate bodies to the public. It is the people's health care system and national health service, and they should be entitled to know exactly what is going on. Furthermore, if one were to make the reports public, one would know what was going on at all times. There is a possibility that although CHAI might keep the appropriate authorities informed, those authorities might not pass that information on to others.
I hope that the Under-Secretary will see the amendment as a move to open out the process and to make it more transparent. I hope that that will be an attractive proposition to him.