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NHS Redress Bill [HL]

My Lords, like the noble Earl, Lord Howe, we have come to the conclusion that having sent the Bill back to another place on two occasions, and it having been returned, we probably now have to rest our case. When we saw Amendment No. 16A, published on Thursday, we believed that a major concession had been made, allowing in regulations a definition of the person investigating the facts to be in some way independent of the NHS organisation concerned. It did not state that in terms, but we thought that that might well be the intention behind Amendment No. 16A. Imagine our distress to discover this morning in a meeting with the Minister in another place, Andy Burnham, that independence was not to be brought in here and that, despite trying twice to send the Bill back to the Commons with the feelings of all sides of this House on the subject being made clear, we had not persuaded the Government that trust in the scheme was of the greatest importance and that independent oversight was therefore essential. Although I accept that we shall not press this further, I would be enormously grateful if the Minister could give us a clue as to the intentions behind Amendment No. 16A if it is not to include some element of independence in oversight of the fact-finding. We are somewhat reassured by the fact that if someone is dissatisfied he can go to the ombudsman. That applies only in cases of maladministration. We are still left with two major concerns. The first, which we have all raised in debating this issue on several occasions and which was so ably expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, when we last debated it, is that people just do not trust documents on the same writing paper as that of the organisation about which they have originally complained. We are delighted that the reports will be made available to the patients. We regard that as a major step forward. We had hoped to see more progress on some of the other issues and would love to know why the Government did not feel able to meet us at least halfway on the question of independent oversight. There is one more area, about which I hope the Minister will give me permission to ask. As the Minister in another place stated this afternoon, there is to be a review of all this. He assured Members that the review would examine whether the way that the redress system works promotes that learning culture about which we are all concerned; whether it reduces costs to the National Health Service; and whether it deals properly with patient safety issues. It would be good to know from the Minister when—after how long—such a review of the redress system will take place. Indeed, it would be excellent if he could tell us whether there would be an independent element in such a review beyond the work that the Healthcare Commission will be carrying out regularly in assessing whether the scheme is operating properly. With that, I thank the Minister for the concessions that he has made and for the way in which he has dealt with all the debates and discussions that we have had on this issue. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for all the work that he has done with colleagues in another place on the matter, all noble Lords who have taken part in the debates and the many outside bodies that have made representations to us all. I also thank the Bill team for all its work, up to and including this morning. We all welcome the Bill. I still believe that it could be a better piece of legislation, but we will have to wait to see how it works before we can judge. I look forward to taking a close interest in the coming months and years.