---

Health Bill [HL]

The noble Earl, Lord Howe, referred to hospital-acquired infections. I want to take that a step further. We all welcome the principle, but I want to put forward a scenario. What would happen in those conditions? I presume that in the regulations there will be a requirement to report on cleanliness in wards, because that is a very important issue for patients. I have spent months and months in hospitals, and some of the experiences that I can recall are pretty appalling—the state of the loos in hospitals, to start with. Who is actually going to evaluate the state of the cleanliness of a loo on a ward in a hospital? I would have thought that all the hospital mechanisms would say, ““Our hospital loos are clean. There are no problems. We hear good reports. The nurses tell us that they’re in good order””, whereas in reality patients often complain about them. It has been going on for years and is still going on. So who will write that report? If someone on a hospital ward complains about the condition of a loo, a ward, a mop under a bed or whatever, a row will break out within the administration about whether it should go into the report or whether it can be blocked. They do not want to see it.