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Health and Social Care Bill

moved Amendment No. 117: 117: Schedule 6, page 142, line 26, at end insert— ““(3) The OHPA shall have regard to the desirability of improving the awareness of, and training in, human rights of its members.”” The noble Earl said: I am afraid that the Committee has me instead of the noble Baroness, Lady Stern. I apologise for that. When the Joint Committee on Human Rights inquired into how the Human Rights Act affected people in old people’s homes, I initially thought that it was nothing to do with them; we were going off on a tangent and it was an unnecessary inquiry. However, I was eventually dragged around to the view, which I have now accepted, that it is important that the Human Rights Act should be part of the care of old people. Those in the nursing profession told us that they had had practically no training on this subject, and that this was a lever they could use to make things better. All I am doing here on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, in whose name the amendments is tabled, is asking that something to the effect of this collection of amendments should be in the Bill. I am sure the Government will say that it is unnecessary, because they have already said so. We do not agree with them because, it says in my brief, it was suggested that knowledge about how to use these rights to provide a better service to patients and service users was extremely limited. If we could have this in the Bill, it would help a little; it would ensure that these things are understood and, above all, that people are properly trained to use them. That would make things generally better all round and is a good idea. I beg to move.