Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Bill

Debate between Lord Warner and Lord Ribeiro

Friday 13th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ribeiro]

I entirely agree. This should be taken forward in all the colleges and, in particular, in the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. Checklists do not stop with surgeons. There is a lesson here for many medical disciplines which could adopt similar practices. This is something that we should hear more about in future.

I have reflected on this in the light of today’s debate and the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and others, and I feel that the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, provides an opportunity to look again at the heading of Clause 1 and to change it to “reducing harm in care”. I am assured by the Public Bill Office that it is possible to change a heading in a Bill without an amendment. I propose to accept the noble Baroness’s suggestion and recommend a change in the heading which will be printed when the Bill is enacted, although I may well ask her not to move her amendment in respect of the rest of the content.

I hope that that and the other assurances I have given about the progress in education and training following the recommendations of the Berwick report will reassure those who remain concerned that this clause implies zero harm. It does not, but it will encourage the reduction of harm in any health setting. It is progressive and does not imply that from the day that the Bill becomes law we will outlaw avoidable harm. To err is human. Our job should be to create a climate through the education and training of medical students—who from this autumn will become patient safety champions—trainees and all healthcare workers whereby they recognise that reducing harm is their responsibility. As a result, I hope noble Lords will not press their amendments.

[Lord Warner]

Will the noble Lord clarify the change in heading? On the first page of the Bill there are two references to “harm-free care”. Will both be changed to “reducing harm in care”?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ribeiro]

My Lords, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, seeks to extend the use of the NHS number to services that benefit children, particularly those in social care, and which protect them from abuse. The Minister addressed the amendments in some detail and I was pleased to hear the assurances he gave, which I hope will have an effect. But I also note that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, was pretty impartial in his criticism of both Front Benches, and the suggestion that they come together and provide some movement is something that perhaps could happen when we have the report from the Department for Education at the end of the year. I will leave it to the noble Lord to decide. He has already intimated that he will not be pressing his amendment.

[Lord Warner]

I just want to register something with the Minister. I am grateful for what he had to say, but the whole issue of trying to make progress in this area is littered with attempts at reviewing the information that is available on making the world a better place. As the noble Lord opposite has reminded us, we have to go back 40 years for the first really serious child abuse scandal, involving Maria Colwell, which came to light. Since then it has been 40 years of agencies, in case after bad case, failing to share information that would have saved a child’s life. As I said, 12 years ago the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said his piece on one of those cases and made it very clear that a common database was required, with a linked identifier.

It is no good the Department for Education crawling all over the ground again and finding 27 reasons why we should not do anything. We need some action. There is plenty of evidence about why a common identifier would make things a lot safer for children. They are pretty much the same arguments that you would use in relation to adults; they are not fundamentally different. The Government and the Opposition Front Bench need to understand what is going on around the country—it is happening in Birmingham—where the agencies are coming together in multiagency safeguarding hubs. But when they come together, they find that their data systems cannot talk to each other, even if they are in the same room, because there is no easy linkage between the different databases.

If we wish to make kids safe, we have to progress this issue quickly. Frankly, I am not wildly reassured by a DfE review by the end of this year in an area that is littered with information about the need to make progress. It is not just me; I think that many of those hard-working professionals I have talked about cannot see why the government bureaucracy—whoever is in government—cannot make some progress in this area. Having got that off my chest, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Warner and Lord Ribeiro

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Warner]

I think that I got out in time.

[Lord Ribeiro]

I rather suspected that the noble Lord did. That is why I felt able to make that reference. None the less, I launched a big campaign at the time because here was a budget—part of the NPEC budget—for nurses, doctors and so on that was being raided. It should have been a ring-fenced budget for training, yet the money was taken out of that budget to meet the NHS deficit. There is a real danger for the present Government if a situation should occur whereby the £1 billion budget—and there is no reason why it should be more than that—that has been set aside for research, particularly as the Secretary of State has taken responsibility to promote research, was found to come under the auspices of the chief executive of the NHS Commissioning Board, and that at times of trouble and trial that that money could be used.

I wanted to speak in line with what I said yesterday, although some noble Lords may doubt that I have spoken briefly. However, I speak in strong support of Amendments 40 and 42.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Warner and Lord Ribeiro

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ribeiro]

I should just like to acknowledge that the references that I made earlier were to wave 1. I fully recognise and appreciate the work done by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, in trying to get a training contract with the private sector. However, there was a determination on the part of the Government when ISTCs were first introduced to keep the NHS consultants and trainees out of those centres.

[Lord Warner]

I ought to make clear that I was not launching an attack on the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, with whom I had an excellent relationship as a Minister when he was president of the Royal College of Surgeons.

I finish by saying that although we are making progress on this Bill by having amendments of this kind early on, it is important to realise their limitations. A number of noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lord Turnberg, have raised a whole raft of issues which still need to be grappled with. This may be the first of a number of debates we have on the issue of education and training as we try to strengthen the Bill in this area.