---

Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours who outlined these very serious issues in his usual clear and moving way. I welcome the opportunity to say how important it is that we take strong action to tackle infections. Amendment No. 21 would restructure the existing provision in relation to infections to require the commission to require providers to display information on their premises about recent instances of infection. Let me say straight away how sympathetic I am towards my noble friend’s intention with this amendment. It is, of course, crucial that such information is easily accessible to the public. I believe that this will be the case even without this amendment, but there is also scope for regulations under Clause 16 to include requirements along these lines. Although this issue is not covered in the current consultation, we will be consulting further later this year on the detail of what regulations under Clause 16 will cover. As noble Lords will be aware, these regulations will also include provision on managing infections and we will be revising the current code of practice on healthcare-associated infections, which will be used to determine compliance with those regulations, to apply to all regulated activities. Under the current code of practice, every NHS body is also required to have a director of infection prevention and control, who is required to make an annual statement on HCAIs in the organisation and to make this available to the public. In revising the code, we will consider how information on infections should be provided in all sectors. The revised code will be subject to a full public consultation so there will be an opportunity for people to comment on our proposals. In addition, the Health Protection Agency collects data on instances of MRSA, C. difficile and other infections from acute trusts under the mandatory surveillance system. These data are available on its website, where patients and their families can access the rates for each trust. Some information is also available on the NHS Choices website. Of course, the Bill already requires the commission to publish inspection reports under Clause 57(3), and Clause 80 requires the commission to make its reports available to the public, just as the current commissions do. I expect that, as now, reports will be available via the commission’s website and the public will also be able to request hard copies. We intend to publish regulations under Clause 85 requiring the commission to publish certain information about enforcement action that it has taken. This means that the public will be able to access information about how the commission is using the new powers it will have at its disposal to address infections wherever they occur. Of course, the commission will also publish information on how well services are performing for the purposes of public accountability, supporting people in making informed choices. So, arrangements are in place for this kind of information to be made available to the public, either by the commission or others. I hope that I have reassured my noble friend that we want to ensure that the public can access information about the services they use, that the Bill will in fact strengthen these arrangements, and that he will therefore agree to withdraw this amendment.