---

Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, we have been consulting on which particular types of care services should be within the scope of registration with the Care Quality Commission. The consultation, which closes tomorrow, on 17 June, is particularly relevant to Amendment No. 16, because we are waiting until we have carefully considered the responses to the consultation before determining the range of agencies that will be regulated by the commission. I am grateful to the noble Earl for raising the issue and have no doubt that after receiving the responses tomorrow, we shall come back at Third Reading to address any gaps in the clauses. I shall make just a few points about definitions. The definition of ““a person”” in Part 1 may be a legal person—that is, an organisation or body—or, as I have been told, a natural person—that is, an individual. The Bill provides for the regulation of activities, and service providers will be required to register in respect of the activities listed in secondary legislation as ““regulated activities””. There is no reason why ““a person”” cannot be an employment agency. In our consultation on the framework for the registration of health and social care providers, we have proposed personal care and nursing care as regulated activities. Agencies which supply healthcare workers fall within the scope of the Care Quality Commission, even where they supply services to children, as those are not regulated by Ofsted. We propose that anyone providing personal care or nursing care in people’s own homes—excluding, of course, relatives, friends or neighbours—should register with the commission. This therefore would include domiciliary care agencies. However, to avoid dual regulation, we propose that where workers are supplied to deliver personal or nursing care solely in settings where a person is already registered by the commission with regard to that activity, these types of agencies should not need to be registered. For example, where an agency supplies workers to a care home, the care home will already have to register and meet registration requirements. As I said earlier, we specifically asked about this in our consultation and we will consider the responses carefully before making a final decision. There is one other issue on proposed subsection (b) of the amendment. Qualified social workers employed by local authorities are regulated professionally by the General Social Care Council. Where a local authority provides a regulated activity, such as a local authority-run care home, it is intended that the care home that provides the accommodation, together with personal or nursing care, will be regulated, as I said earlier. Finally, in complying with the registration requirements, the provider will have to ensure that workers are safe and competent under proposed registration requirement No. 15 in our consultation document. As I promised earlier, if there is still a gap and if we are wiser after the consultation, I will look into this and bring forward any necessary amendments at Third Reading. I hope that the noble Earl will withdraw his amendment.