Clause 15 - Code of practice: improvement notices
Health Bill
10:30 am
Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for Health, Health; Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
I shall give the hon. Gentleman an instinctive response. As the amendment is drafted, it would appear to imply that, as he suggests, a failing body could mean one outside the NHS—a non-NHS provider. That was not my intention. If the private sector decides to supply services to the NHS, it should include in its financial planning the finances necessary to provide effective infection control procedures. My point is that the NHS and its finances are the responsibility of the Secretary of State, and it would be wrong of her to say that action with potentially substantial revenue and/or capital implications must be taken to tackle an infection without ensuring that the trust that had failed had the money it needed to do the job.
I shall not deviate on to the financial state of the NHS. Deficits are an increasing problem and they tend to be heavily focused, so where they happen, they are quite big. A significant minority of trusts have most of the deficit. If the bodies in substantial deficit were also the failing bodies referred to in the clause, it would be unreasonable to expect them to sort out the problem without the Secretary of State ensuring that they had the resources to do so. That is the purpose of our amendment.