Health and Social Care Bill

Lord Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I addressed one specific proposal, not the whole world and the whole conduct of the Bill. I addressed one specific proposal, and the noble Lord comes back and tells me, “Has a patient no right to express a view?”. Of course the patient has a right to express a view. There will be public consultation. That is not the issue. The issue is that the noble Lord produced a specific proposal. One of my colleagues found it novel and interesting. I find it novel, but I am not at all persuaded that it has been well thought through, and I am interested that the noble Lord jumped so immediately to defend not the proposal but his posture.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I thought that I might get up to say one sentence to stop this conversation from going further. My name is on several amendments, particularly those proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, about competency. I have a simple question, which I am sure the Minister will be able to answer easily. What competencies do the commissioners have to demonstrate before they are authorised to become commissioners? I know that there will be guidance, but what competencies will be looked at that demonstrate that they can be commissioners? I am being very brief today because of being chastised for talking too long; but now I have evidence that suggests that I was not the worst, so I will carry on another time.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I want to say one or two things about the consultation and go back to what I was saying before dinner. The question of patients is a bit of a red herring. To that extent, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, was asking to be tripped up over it. Everybody is a patient to some extent, but the important thing is that the residents of an area, or citizens—whatever they are called nowadays—should know what is going on and that there should be an opportunity for a public debate to take place in the normal places—local newspapers, local radio, public meetings—about the future, structure and organisation of the health services in their area.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was absolutely right when he said that there is a huge amount going on at the moment. It is not going on in complete secrecy; people involved in it know what is happening and are telling other people, and people in local authorities and others are having some discussions. However, by and large, there is not a proper process for providing people with open and full—or even partial—information about the proposals that are taking place. I do not think that it is a question of patients being able to tell their doctors which CCG they want to be part of, because the CCGs will be area-based, as we all know, and the doctors will be part of the CCG in their area. The questions are: what area is that going to cover, where is the CCG going to be, and how is it going to fit in to the health service? That is a fundamental question. So to that extent the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is absolutely right. I think that the question of patients is a red herring.

Whenever I go to see my doctor, I consult him about what is happening in the health service, he consults me about that and all sorts of other things, and occasionally we get around to talking about my health; but I do not suppose that I am a very typical patient. That is a fact of life. However, it is a fundamental problem, and the source of a huge amount of the mistrust about what is going on at the moment is that people simply cannot find out what is going on. That is not in the amendments to this Bill. The Minister and his colleagues simply need to tell the health service to be a lot more open and transparent about what is going on and allow local debate on it.