New Clause 9
Health Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Sandra Gidley (Romsey, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move, that the clause be read a Second time.
The Committee will be relieved to know that this will be a somewhat shorter explanation. Earlier in Committee, I raised concerns about the accessibility of the NHS constitution in formats for people with different disabilities, and was not entirely reassured that this was covered under the Disabilities Discrimination Act 2005. We have had that Act for some time, and the figures I produced previously showed that a lot of people—particularly partially sighted people—are not receiving information in a useable and useful form.
The Government have talked a great deal about the importance of information: we have the NHS Choices website and NHS Direct. They have been very committed to providing the public at large with information, and I welcome that. However, people working in government and in trusts have a duty to ensure that as many people as possible can access that. Therefore, this clause asks that trusts should publish, as part of their reporting on their disability equality duty obligations, details of the number of documents they have provided to disabled people in formats other than standard print. Again, it is all very well having the legislation, but if it does not require people actively to do something which can be monitored, it is very often forgotten or, worse still, ignored. With that, I withdraw my remarks to a close—sorry, draw my remarks to a close.