Clause 3
NHS Redress Bill [Lords]
11:45 am
Siôn Simon (Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)
We are at risk of continually hearing that if we look at best practice in the health service, this is already being done and that is already being done. But that is not really the point. There is no doubt that there is good practice in the health service and lots of good things, but we are supposed to be writing a law saying exactly how things are supposed to be done in future. We are not supposed to be leaving it to people’s good will and intentions. Many people in the health service are already doing things very well.
On the specifics of amendment No. 18, we should be clear that it does not talk about learning lessons. It is not a lessons-learning amendment. Nor does it talk, crucially, about the commissioning of a report. This is not about imposing a bureaucratic requirement on the health service, or on anybody, to commission a report. The amendment talks about providing to the claimant the details of the report, which as part of the process will, de facto, already have been written. This is not about commissioning a new report, but about publishing details of the inquiry already undertaken. On that basis, what good reason have the Government for withholding from the claimant details of a report that has already been written? And if one has not been written, what kind of investigation has there been?