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Health and Social Care Bill

The amendments lead us into territory that is familiar to those of us who sat through the Committee proceedings: the role of local involvement networks. The amendments again try to put LINks on the face of the Bill, in the provisions for the Care Quality Commission, the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence and the Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator. Let me first deal with amendments Nos. 131 and 136. As we specified in the previous debate and in Committee, we all want the Care Quality Commission to have a clear duty to engage with and be responsive to interested parties. I was therefore pleased to move Government amendment No. 62 to clarify the issue. In Committee, we discussed hon. Members' desire for the CQC, the CHRE and the OHPA to be independent. However, the amendments would prescribe the bodies to which those independent organisations should pay regard. That is not a sensible way to proceed. Government amendment No. 62 makes it clear that the CQC should have regard to the views of organisations that represent patients. As the hon. Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) said earlier, there may be specialist care investigations—for example, organisations might want to pay regard to the users of mental health services or other specialist groups. We do not believe that limiting the groups to which they should pay regard to LINks is sensible. That does not mean that we do not have confidence in LINks—we have every confidence that they will do an excellent job and we expect the CQC to work closely with them.