---

Health and Social Care Bill

I do not want to say much on this issue, as it really has all been said; it has been put so elegantly by the three speakers that I would not attempt to emulate them. I hope that the Government will take on board the real unease that exists about this concept of responsible officers. Anyone in the Department of Health who has worked as a clinician in a trust, as they are now, or in another organisation will know of the difficulties, the jealousies and the backbiting; they will know how clinicians complain all the time that people get extra money and extra awards for doing things that are not clinical. This is another opportunity to take a clinician away from his work and give him a whole load of responsibility that, as has been elegantly pointed out, he will not have the training for. I shall not say any more on that, as it has all been said. I have talked to lots of my colleagues, some of whom are still practising and some of whom are retired. They are horrified by the concept of responsible officers. They do not see how it will work. I have heard phrases such as ““management creep”” bandied around. I have been asked what the merit award will be, or whatever the modern equivalent is. People have said, ““How much will you get for that, then?””. They have said, ““We will be left to do the clinical work and the out-patients and to deal with all the work while he prances around as a responsible officer””. Doctors working together are often very unkind to one another. I think that we should think hard before we proceed along this route.