Clause 9
Health Bill [Lords]
2:00 pm
Mike O'Brien (Minister of State (Health Services), Department of Health; North Warwickshire, Labour)
Amendment 158 would impose on NICE a role in helping people to understand providers’ quality accounts by providing further information to allow a comparison between accounts and to oblige the Secretary of State to publish NICE’s guidance. Our view is that NICE is not best placed to provide the comparability tool. That is not its role. NICE provides standards. It does not measure against them subsequently. It sets them.
Having said that, we are looking closely at how to facilitate comparison in other ways. We have given a commitment that quality accounts should be published on the NHS Choices website specifically to allow for informed and meaningful comparisons to be made. We are also considering providing more explanatory material to the public and a toolkit for publishers of quality accounts to draw on to ensure that their documents are reader friendly and to enable comparability by the public. We intend to do that by guidance rather than prescriptive regulation.
One factor in the production process for the toolkit is evaluation of the current quality accounts testing process being led by NHS East of England and Monitor. We expect to have the final report within the next eight weeks. That will help us to identify any problems, and thus solutions, in aiding public understanding of the meaning and import of the information used in quality accounts. That will then inform our consultation on draft regulations and guidance later in the year. We believe that the role proposed in the amendment would not be welcomed by NICE and would not fit easily with its current role in the NHS.