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Health and Social Care Bill

I shall start by speaking to Liberal Democrat amendment No. 2, which would make it a duty of the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence to commission independent advice and information services to assist members of the public who have concerns about the fitness to practise of a health professional. One decision that might have to be made would be whether to report a concern to a regulatory body. If the decision was to go ahead with that, there would be a duty to provide help in reporting the concerns in an effective way, and if the matter were dealt with by the OHPA there would be a duty to support the member of the public through the process. There is currently no service to inform members of the public of where to report concerns about health professionals or to help them do so. That is a great problem. Let us take the Shipman case as an example. The people who were directly affected by Shipman were not in a position to complain, but his mode of operation might have been slightly different and those who might have had concerns because they felt they were being targeted in some way would have been members of one of the most vulnerable groups in society. Many people who have reached the age of 60 do have the time and ability to deal with such things, but some of them, especially if they are not well and life is a bit of an effort, find it difficult to discover in our complicated society where they should go to get the help they need. There is therefore a feeling that many problems are not brought forward because people do not know how to do that; advice is patchy, and no support is available. Many stakeholders believe that this need should be met. There would have to be a cap on the system because we would not want there to be an open invitation for everybody to take advice, but provided that certain criteria are met this could provide a useful way of enabling people who would not otherwise bring complaints to bring them early, so that problems are nipped in the bud. This duty would be compatible with the CHRE's overall duty to serve patients and the public and promote excellence in health professional regulators. On amendment No. 81, I was somewhat surprised when I discovered that the GMC was a registered charity. I am not sure why a professional regulatory body should have that status, and I am interested to know what charitable works it performs, although that is a side issue. I have listened carefully to the comments of the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien), and I could not understand how the creation of fees would definitely have an effect on the charitable status of the regulatory body.