Clause 8
Health Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Michael Penning (Shadow Minister, Health; Hemel Hempstead, Conservative)
Thank you, Mr. O’Hara. It is a pleasure to discuss this part of the Bill. I am pleased that the amendments have been grouped together. We are minded, like a lot of stakeholders, to support quality accounts. The amendments are probing amendments to find out from the Government exactly what the quality accounts will look like. Sadly, a lot of the detail is likely to be covered in secondary legislation.
Stakeholders, such as the NHS Confederation, the King’s Fund, Help the Aged and others are concerned about the lack of detail. In fact, the King’s Fund believes that the publication will be relatively passive in its form and will not give the public the accountability of quality that we are looking for. Looking back to the Maidstone debacle and the shameful events that took place in Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, the quality of the accounts that the public can see is important, as I am sure the Minister agrees. Amendments 87 and 156 would develop exactly who will be responsible for publishing quality accounts. The phrase “not limited to” is self-explanatory about where we are coming from.
I support Liberal Democrat amendment 169. It is important that data that could be used in other areas of public analysis are available. In recent years, we have not seen data on injuries within hospitals. For example, it is difficult for us, when tabling parliamentary questions, to find out from trusts the exact type of injuries dealt with by A and E departments. It is imperative that such information is available. I have tabled the amendment to urge the Minister to develop exactly who quality accounts will be limited to.