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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, in his amendment. I do so from a background as an inspector in a different organisation but one which worked closely with the then inspector of social services. I must admit that, when joint working, one of the things that concerned me was a tendency to tick-box rather than inspect, particularly when we were inspecting places in which children were held. I stated at an earlier stage my concerns about this merger of the three commissions into one and that there is a danger that, in doing so, the three separate functions of regulation, audit and inspection are being confused. Tick-box methods are perfectly all right for regulation and audit, because that is what they are, but they are not good enough for inspection, which requires detailed examination by experts, followed by judgments. Those are not fuelled by tick-boxes. I am extremely glad that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, mentioned unannounced inspections. When I was Chief Inspector of Prisons I was meant to inspect every five years, but I did not have the resources for enough teams to do even that. I had to appeal for resources to get a third team in order to get the frequency down to five years. One of the reasons for that was that I insisted that five years was too long and that one needed to insert unannounced inspections during that period, particularly to monitor that the recommendations I had made in the previous inspection were being followed through. It seems extremely unwise, therefore, for any organisation, if it is responsible for something of such sensitivity as care homes, not to include that sort of regime and make certain that the resources are available to maintain it in its entirety. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will listen very carefully to this and make certain that the sums are done to ensure that such a regime can be introduced before this deal is signed off.