Clause 6
NHS Redress Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Andy Burnham (Minister of State (Delivery and Quality), Department of Health; Leigh, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman asks why, but his hon. Friend the Member for Billericay said the investigations are already being done and that things are already in place. It is not so. There is not an independent patient redress investigator assigned to each trust or region of the country; they do not exist. The function to be created under clause 12 will add cost. On Second Reading either the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) or one of his hon. Friends talked about suitably medically qualified patient redress investigators. If he could explain how and where that is replicated in the current system, I would be interested. Comparisons were drawn with the coroner system, no less. The Opposition are not proposing something that replicates, reassigns or repackages what happens at a local level but an extremely different scheme. I would be interested to know how the hon. Member for Billericay feels that I am wrong in drawing that conclusion.