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NHS Redress Bill [Lords]

I do not accept the Opposition’s charge that the scheme that we proposed would not be credible. Indeed, the principle of the Bill, the way in which we intend to proceed and the recommendations of the chief medical officer have been welcomed by a number of patients organisations and others involved in these matters. We have, of course, put in place additional safeguards to ensure that the scheme works in the way in which we intend and believe that it will. We want the Healthcare Commission to have a specific role providing training to the hospital trusts and the scheme members on the way in which the redress scheme will operate. We will ensure that the Healthcare Commission’s annual review of the provision of health care by NHS bodies will consider how effectively each of those hospital trusts is operating the redress scheme. In other words, there will be a new standard relating to redress and the Healthcare Commission will review the operation of the scheme against the new criteria.