Health Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Helen Morgan and Sureena Brackenridge

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Morgan]

Q What could be changed in this legislation to ensure that HSSIB can retain trust and independence from the regulatory body?

Dr Benneyworth: There needs to be much more clarity about governance and how that will work in the legislation to protect independence. There are potential compromises that could happen, such as a Healthwatch-style model that has its own independent leadership within the CQC, its own governance arrangements and, importantly, its own identity. That would enable it to keep its independence, while being part of a larger organisation. In the legislation, it is vital that there is a legal duty for the CQC to protect safe space.

[Sureena Brackenridge]

Q I feel that my question may have just been answered, but you may wish to add something, Dr Benneyworth. Will patient safety accountability be improved when a patient’s care spans different organisations within an ICB?

Dr Benneyworth: One of the things that we see regularly in our investigations is that people fall down the gaps between organisations. We have the ability to look right across the system and understand a person’s journey. As a recent example, we looked at medication errors on discharge from hospital. There are a lot of medication errors, and we looked at the process of how information was being shared and what was happening. Those are the type of things where we see a lot of concerns about patient safety. There needs to be much more clarity about accountability for patient safety.

No one is accountable for the discharge of a patient. There is not one person—no single individual—who is accountable when someone is discharged from hospital to social care. You go through multiple layers of accountability. We are keen to learn from other industries that have effective safety management systems. Part of those safety management systems is having much more clarity about accountability, which is lacking across the NHS. I very much hope that, with the changes to ICBs, they really do think about accountability for patient safety.