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Health and Social Care Bill

I just wanted to say a word or two about the drafting involved in this. The noble Lord, Lord Williamson, pointed out that the opening clause, which is the foundation of the health service, states: "““The Secretary of State must continue the promotion in England of a comprehensive health service designed to secure improvement … in the physical and mental health of the people of England, and""(b) in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness””." That is precisely the phrase that is the subject of the amendment, but it comes earlier in the Bill. I cannot believe that when the people who put the health service together in 1946 used that phrase, they did not have in mind that physical and mental health involved the idea that if there was illness, it could be either physical or mental. If we are to change an exactly similar phrase later in the Bill, consideration needs to be given as to whether we should do it at the beginning which is, after all, in many ways the most important place. I have every sympathy with all that has been said, and I am sure that it is right that we take serious account of it. We must remember the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, about the need for integration of treatment for mental illness along with physical illness. Anything that separates them might not be conducive to progress. I have every sympathy with the proposal.