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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, we have referred to ““patients”” all the time, and I understood that HealthWatch was going to be public and patients. The Care Quality Commission looks at complaints. There is a culture issue here. The independence of HealthWatch is vital, because we are talking about the future as well as the present. My experience over the years, when we have been looking at new services, is to have the public and patient representation coming forward with ideas—it should not be governed by a health authority or anyone else, but be independent—and reporting back to the body that asks the question. We are going a little off-beam in terms of the Care Quality Commission, which would be culturally oppressive to any organisation that is set up to look to the future.