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NHS Redress Bill [Lords]

I will deal with that point later, but I tell the hon. Gentleman that we have built into the Bill elements that will strengthen the transparency and accountability of the process for the patient. There is genuine disagreement between the Opposition and the Government, but it is important that we see the scheme for what it is—an in-house, first-stage process. Under the scheme, trusts need not go through the long process to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) alluded, but can rather engage with the complaint from the first. They can learn from what happened to the patient, and can then provide speedy redress, thereby improving the experience for the patient and saving the organisation a great deal of time. That is the right thing to do. If the first stage of the scheme included an independent investigation, the scheme would have the same qualities as the process that is available to patients who choose not to pursue their complaint through the redress scheme, or who proceed to litigation because they did not receive satisfaction through the scheme. That is a different proposal, and it would make the scheme entirely different. I have to turn the subject back to the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron). The ideas on independence put forward by the Opposition Front Benchers, both in this House and in another place, have varied considerably during the parliamentary passage of the Bill. When the Bill was first sent to the Commons from another place, it required the Secretary of State for Health to make provision for the appointment of patient redress investigators. There was to be a panel of independent investigators, who were to conduct investigations. The Healthcare Commission was to maintain a list of those investigators, and to oversee them. That model gave rise to problems of cost and practicality, with the Department’s own economist estimating a cost of £41 million a year. On Report, the hon. Member for Billericay pointed out some of those problems and presented a variation in which the person overseeing the investigation was independent of the scheme member in question. We were told that there would be the same administration, but it would operate under the direction of an independent person, so there would be no new bureaucracy.