Clause 15
Health and Social Care Bill
6:30 pm
Ben Bradshaw (Minister of State (Health Services; Minister for the South West), Department of Health; Exeter, Labour)
I agree that it is important that providers are treated fairly in the process. My understanding of the effect of the proposal is that when the Care Quality Commission takes normal action, registered persons have the right to make representations to the commission and if they are not satisfied they have an independent right of appeal to a tribunal. In that case, the action would not take effect until after an appeal was heard, so there should be no material effect on the person or the provider, and therefore no need for compensation.
If the CQC takes urgent action, which we discussed earlier, the action would bite straight away to protect patients and service users. In those cases, if the commission had acted improperly there may be a case for compensation, as businesses could have been affected. However, the first priorities of the commission are its duties to patient and service safety and we expect it to carry out those responsibilities extremely carefully.