NHS: Risk Register

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they consider the time will be right to publish the NHS risk register.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and, in so doing, I declare an interest as chair of an NHS foundation trust and as a consultant and trainer on the NHS and health issues.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, the transition risk register will be published when the balance of public interest favours disclosure. We will continue to be open about risk. Last week we published a document containing information on all risk areas in the register, along with a scheme of publication for future review and release of information on risk.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Earl for that because he said that it would be published when the balance is in favour of the public interest. Can I take him back to the judgment of the First-tier Tribunal, which concluded that risk registers,

“would have provided the public with a far better understanding of the risks to a national institution”,

on which millions depend? Surely the public interest and parliamentary scrutiny actually depended on that risk register being published, and it should have been published when the Bill was in this House.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we do not agree with that. We have, as I have mentioned, published a document setting out a summary of all the risks in the register and the mitigating actions associated with each category, but we resist publishing the risk register itself at present. It is essential that officials are able to formulate sensitive advice to Ministers, making frank assessments and using direct language, without the fear of causing unnecessary embarrassment for the Government or damage to their area of policy. That is the essence of the reason.