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Health and Social Care Bill

moved Amendment No. 139: 139: Clause 110, page 55, line 34, after ““general),”” insert — ““(a) ”” The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 139 would allow Amendment No. 140 to be inserted. During the previous debate, it struck me that one of the first jobs of the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence might be to get the General Dental Council to learn a few lessons from the General Medical Council’s book on more modernised and open procedures. I wish the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, well in her mission to do that. The amendment would ensure openness of procedures. The council will be taking major decisions to protect the public from malpractice and, as such, the public deserve to be assured that the processes will be undertaken without undue delay and without any bias. On a previous day in Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Golding, gave details of the processes that contain potential bias and explained how that can result in a miscarriage of justice. I am concerned about how, without open reporting and scrutiny, the public and the professions will be assured that the council is working well. In the light of our previous discussions, it might be helpful to consider the fitness-to-practise statistics. At the moment, there are about 244,000 doctors on the medical register and approximately 5,000 complaints a year are received by the GMC, of which between 1,300 and 1,800 are investigated. Only 300 of these cases are referred to a hearing, resulting in around 40 to 50 doctors being erased each year. This gives one an idea of the funnelling-down of the disciplinary processes. While we have addressed the issue of erasure, the GMC has put in place many other remedial actions and retraining procedures. I hope that the amendments are self-explanatory in relation to timeliness and independence. An undue delay in procedures is damaging to the professionals, to the patient population and their families, to those involved in investigations and to those who have brought forward cases. As time goes on, the damage tends to be cumulative; questions are asked and trust is lost. However, if issues are dealt with in a timely way, trust in the process is more likely to be retained by all parties. I beg to move.