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NHS Redress Bill [HL]

This has been an interesting debate. I first compliment the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on his excellent rendition of Section 128 of the National Health Service Act 1977. Not only is it a government document, it is a legislative definition. It is exactly what we are currently defining as a hospital so he is absolutely on the ball on that issue. Clause 1(7) enables the Secretary of State to include in a scheme cases involving services usually provided in a hospital but which are not so provided in particular circumstances and are, for some reason, provided outside a hospital. The purpose of this subsection is to allow the scope of the scheme to be extended to cover hospital-like services provided in other settings—for example, in prisons, which the noble Earl mentioned. I do not think that the Government are to blame for blurring and making these things more complicated. We are responding to technology and alternative ways of better providing services to patients. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, put some of that extremely well. We are trying to find ways of giving services to people on a more convenient basis. The trouble is that it sometimes makes some of the definitions made in 1977 look a little rusty, if I may put it that way. We want to ensure that, as we take the scheme forward in the subordinate legislation, we do not deny people access to the scheme because it happens to not fit in with the 1977 definition of a hospital. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, raised some interesting issues. Certainly, I want to take away the issue of path labs and other diagnostics that are in a freestanding state. On a quick reading, they could well be the types of services that need to be provided for in secondary legislation, so we would need the ability to have a wider definition that Clause 1(7) provides for us to make subordinate legislation to deal with that issue. That is the thinking behind this, and that is why we have the provision in Clause 1(7). It would give us greater flexibility in the future. I certainly take the specific points that the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, raised, and I will write to her.