Health and Social Care Bill

Baroness Wall of New Barnet Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is right to remind the House of the repeated reforms of the health service made under the previous Administration. I do not have a figure for how much they cumulatively cost the taxpayer, but it was clearly a great deal and I recall that one of the reforms took place over the course of the summer without any reporting to Parliament at all. The contrast between those reforms and this one is marked. We are doing this to get better care for patients. The previous Government were really only doing it to rearrange the deckchairs.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

Does the noble Earl agree that, contrary to my noble friend’s comments, there is a real regret in the health service that our excellence awards—as you know my trust in Chase Farm has received one—have been done away with by the Government with the CQC. I do not know what the Guardian article said and I do not know what it means by “credit”, but getting credit for good services and proper care is something that everyone in the health service would welcome. The focus for us in the health service is indeed to join social care and healthcare. Can any emphasis that can be given by the noble Earl or the Department of Health come as quickly as possible please?

[Earl Howe]

The noble Baroness was absolutely right in what she said in the last part of her question. I apologise to the House if I misunderstood the previous question about credit ratings, which I took to mean something to do with finance rather than gold stars, which I think the noble Baroness was talking about. I will try to clarify that in a letter.