Clause 4
NHS Redress Bill [Lords]
12:30 pm
John Baron (Shadow Minister, Health; Billericay, Conservative)
The amendments seem to deal with the central issue of who can trigger the redress scheme. Who will say, “Yes, we need to look at what went wrong here and at the lessons that can be learned from it.”? The amendments appear to want to give that right only to the individual concerned, and I would be troubled by that, because I believe that the issue is one of public interest.
The point of the redress scheme is to give an explanation, or an apology where it is due, or perhaps compensation, which is an option that is within the auspices of the NHS Litigation Authority. Its other major aim, however, is to ensure that lessons are learned for the benefit of all, so I would be concerned about any suggestion that the scheme could be triggered only by the relevant individual.
I can envisage cases in which there would be obvious lessons that could be applied for the benefit of all patients, but in which the patient for some reason decided not to pick up and run with the scheme. Members on both sides of the Committee have said that it is important that the lessons learned be for everyone’s benefit. In the vast majority of cases, patients with grievances have an altruistic approach whereby they want to ensure that what happened to them is not repeated, but if instigation of the redress scheme was restricted to those who had suffered grievance, there would be a risk that lessons would not be learned for the benefit of other patients in the NHS.