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Health and Social Care Bill

moved Amendment No. 63: 63: After Clause 34, insert the following new Clause— ““Handling and consideration of complaints by Care Quality Commission (1) Where a complainant is not satisfied with the conduct or result of an investigation by a service provider regulated under this Part, he may request the Care Quality Commission to consider the complaint in accordance with regulations made under this section. (2) Before making regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must consult such persons as he considers appropriate.”” The noble Earl said: I am afraid that the Committee has me instead of the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, moving the amendment, which it may find is rather a bad bargain, because she is completely on top of this topic. This amendment arises from concerns expressed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which we both sit. It refers to the person who is not satisfied with how a complaint has been handled by the service provider. The amendment is clear, probably because it has been drafted by us rather than by draftsmen who make certain that no one can understand it without assistance, about four QCs and 300 guineas an hour. The JCHR was concerned that the current position does not meet the concerns in its report, Human Rights of Older People in Health Care. In that report, the JCHR considered evidence that service users’ rights could be undermined where complaints were referred back to individual providers or, in the care sector, to the local government ombudsman. Similarly, the Bill maintains the distinction between private- and public-funded service users for the purposes of complaint. This is a distinction which Age Concern calls on the Government to end. It supports the amendments proposed during the Bill’s passage through the House of Commons, which provides for the establishment of an independent complaints body operating alongside the CQC. When we took evidence for the report, we certainly heard about the fears of old people that they might be deprived of their tenancy in a care home because they had made a complaint and about how they feel vulnerable. This amendment is an attempt to do something about that. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, and several Members of the Committee have expressed sympathy with this proposal, but that the Government feel that it is not necessary. I am not convinced. I beg to move.