---

Health and Social Care Bill

moved Amendment No. 142: 142: Clause 114, page 58, line 30, at end insert— ““(1A) Any person eligible to be nominated or appointed as a responsible officer shall be registered with the General Medical Council.”” The noble Baroness said: We come to a slightly different part of the Bill, which relates to responsible officers, who are being charged with the early identification of problems and thereby remediation of problems before they get to the point where they damage patient care. As a principle, that is to be welcomed. There are rigorous and well established processes already, but they might prove impractical in relation to responsible officers as outlined in the Bill. This does not really relate to those working in trusts, where there are already clear appraisal processes, but it relates to those working in general practice. There is a concern that the responsible officer might be someone who is either too close to or has some bias against the person whom they are overseeing. The way in which the Bill is drafted gives rise to the concern that the responsible officer does not necessarily have to be a registered medical practitioner. If one is looking at a degree of self-regulation and the early identification of problems, there is a lot of wisdom in making sure that the responsible officer has a medical background. This is currently the case in trusts, where the medical director is the person to whom the doctor would be answerable. Amendment No. 144 has been drafted to cover situations where personal issues are involved. In such cases the responsible officer is not automatically designated but provision is made for an alternative responsible officer to be appointed. Two examples of where this might apply have been brought to my attention by doctors. The first example is a marital dispute involving two doctors, where either they have been married and then divorced or one of them has had an involvement with the spouse of the other, which can create a tense and difficult environment. The other example, a situation which has already arisen, is where the medical director of a PCT had a serious falling out, at practice level, with one of the partners and the partner had nowhere to go to seek support. She was very keen to have the choice of going to a responsible officer at a neighbouring PCT for her professional registration to be overseen and scrutinised because of the fear of vindictive recriminations against her. That is the background to the drafting of the amendments. I have discussed the amendments with the Medical Defence Union and the Medical Protection Society, which is particularly supportive of them. I beg to move.