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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, Amendment No. 40 concerns the display of information on providers’ premises, which we discussed earlier in relation to healthcare-associated infections. This amendment would require providers to display information on their premises in relation to the findings of inspections by the commission, and, as my noble friend outlined, by several other people as well. As I said in relation to Amendment No. 21, I agree with my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours that it is important that people can access information about what the commission has said about a provider or facility. I agree that the information should be easily available; the noble Lord, Lord Neill, also mentioned that. The CQC would be wise to listen to the list that my noble friend outlined. 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. The same would apply to the findings of assessments under Clauses 42 or 45, or indeed of any other review or investigation that the commission might undertake. In addition, under Clause 54 the commission will be able to make available to the public any information that it holds about the provision of NHS care, adult social services or other regulated activities. The commission will make available a wide range of information on providers to the public, users, potential users and their families, to support them in making informed choices. As I said earlier, we will consult on the detail of regulations under Clause 16, but there is scope for them to include a requirement such as this. Indeed, once regulations under Clause 85 are in place, the public will be able to access information about how the commission is using the new powers to tackle providers that are failing to meet the necessary requirements. From that combination of reassurances, I hope that my noble friend will feel that we want to ensure that the public, potential users and their families can access as much information as possible about the services they use, from an independent source that they can trust. The current commissions place great emphasis on that and we want the Care Quality Commission to build on their good work. I hope that he will therefore agree to withdraw the amendment.