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NHS Redress Bill [Lords]

As the House well knows, the NHS Redress Bill returns, having been amended in the House of Lords. This is the second time that the House of Lords has rejected the Government’s proposal. More than 30 Cross-Bench peers voted for our amendment, whereas only one voted against it. That sends a clear signal that our amendment was passed because it is right in principle. It is about patient interests, not party politics. As we all know, clinical negligence is a mess. We can all agree on that. It is complex, unfair, slow, costly and wasteful. We welcome the Government’s attempts to address those problems but are concerned that the balance between the interests of patients and the health service, as envisaged by the Government, is not right. The redress scheme proposes a genuine alternative for the high volume of modest value cases. We fully support those good intentions and want the Bill to succeed, but the Government’s proposals are fundamentally flawed and do not best serve patient interests. Time and time again, patients tell us that they want an explanation of what went wrong and an apology if appropriate. They want to ensure that lessons are learned for the benefit of others. Compensation does not necessarily rank high in people’s priorities. The Government’s amendments do not, in our view, best meet those priorities. As the Minister has highlighted, the reason for that revolves around the issue of independence. The reason why the Bill has been sent back to us by the House of Lords is because their lordships believe that the investigation of facts under the scheme ought to be independent of the trust in question, whereas the Government believe that it ought to be a completely in-house process. Their lordships are right. Patients will not have confidence in an in-house system. That is why we shall oppose the Government’s solution. Opposition Members believe that the investigation should be overseen by someone who is independent and unconnected with the trust and with the NHS Litigation Authority. To us, independence is a fundamental principle of natural justice that is enshrined in the rule against bias: no man should be judge in his own case or cause. That avoids a conflict of interest. That is the one common concern of the many organisations outside this place that we have consulted. Even within this place, the Constitutional Affairs Committee, in its report, ““Compensation culture””, last March, stated:"““We are concerned that if the organisation which is responsible for defending trusts and hospitals is also charged with running the scheme, there may be a perception (whatever the reality) of a conflict of interest.””" That is terribly important. We can all agree that the interests of the patient must come first, but the best way of guaranteeing those interests is to ensure that the investigation is independent so that it has credibility.