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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I think that the board of directors is best placed to decide how much private income overall a trust should receive, on the proviso that the principal purpose of the foundation trust remains adhered to. Governors should concern themselves with any threat to that status. If they perceive that the board is in danger of overstepping the mark in that sense, then of course it is their province. Otherwise, I think it is for the board of directors to judge what is in the best interests of the trust as a whole and of NHS patients. That could mean expanding the trust’s private patient work, capitalising on intellectual property, or whatever it happened to be.