Clause 13 - Code of practice relating to health care associated infections
Health Bill
12:00 pm
Jane Kennedy (Minister of State, Department of Health; Liverpool, Wavertree, Labour)
I will want to look back at what was said and at what the considerations were in order to be able to give a more detailed answer on the dates and times. Since I took up my post in May, tackling health care-acquired infection has been one of our priorities. I was keen to ensure that we got a draft code into the public domain as soon as possible so that we could have wide consultation on the measures and standards against which hospitals should be judged when it comes to the codes of cleanliness and hygiene that the Bill establishes.
The Committee will not be surprised to hear that we want Members to resist amendment No. 104. It would serve no practical purpose since it only obliges the Government to do what we clearly intend to do anyway, so that there is no need for such a code. The architecture that we are using is not new or something that we have thought up; we have tried this route before. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) referred to the 2003 Act, and we are building on the process of establishing the standards in that Act. We have followed the model that permits rather than obliges the Secretary of State to publish standards. We are proposing an effective set of statutory obligations that can be linked to the need to take action. We should not impose a duty on the Secretary of State that may not in future be necessary or useful. I would have thought that the Conservative Members would not be blind to that argument.