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NHS Redress Bill [Lords]

On behalf of the Conservative party, I welcome the Bill, particularly in the form in which it has come to us from another place. The Secretary of State is quite right to say that, every day, tens of thousands of patients are treated in our hospitals. They are grateful to NHS staff for the care and attention that they give, and successful treatment is provided to the highest standards in the overwhelming majority of cases. The Secretary of State will also be aware that, as in other health care systems across the world, a small fraction of treatments give rise to adverse events, and a tiny fraction of those adverse events give rise to injury. We need to pay very careful attention to those cases—not least, as she says, to learn the lessons and constantly to improve the quality of care. I am sure that she and the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who has taken up ministerial responsibility for patient safety and quality, will pay very close attention to the progress of the National Patient Safety Agency’s reporting scheme, which, like so many other schemes, is running late. I am sure that it will speed up under the Minister’s whip. We cannot underestimate the importance of these matters, because for patients who are affected and for those who suffer injury, such events can be very serious indeed. All of us as MPs will have had such cases in our constituencies; I have certainly had a number. Indeed, the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton) will recall our debates on the Human Tissue Bill, and the fact that that legislation itself gave rise to quite a number of cases—certainly in my constituency—of constituents feeling very strongly that the way in which the NHS dealt with them portrayed precisely some of the unfortunate issues with which we are now trying to get to grips. The truth of what had happened was not acknowledged and the facts were not made available—in some cases for many years. Even when the facts were transparent, for reasons of not admitting liability, they did not give rise to an apology or a decent explanation, or any intention to provide substantial redress. As it happened, my constituents were not seeking financial compensation; they were driven to the courts by the failure of the NHS to accept liability and responsibility, and to provide proper explanations and an apology. That is principally what they were looking for. We should start by recognising the fact that strictly speaking, this legislation is not required for the NHS to provide the facts, an explanation or an apology. All those things can happen now, and should happen now. They should not happen only as a result of this Bill. This legislation is not an alternative to litigation; it should provide a basis in difficult cases, where the facts are not easily found and where fault is not easily established, for a much more patient-friendly way to proceed.