NHS Redress Bill [HL]

I cannot resist the temptation to take part in a debate that starts with the words, ““This is intended to find out what the clause actually means””, which is always a worthwhile activity. I am glad that the noble Earl raised this issue because, as the clause is drafted, it might serve to get in the way of some innovations that are quite welcome. It is also enables us to raise another point about the definition of ““services”” in the Bill. There is an increasing and welcome move towards taking some services out of acute hospitals to patients. I know of one hospital in the north-west where, instead of taking patients for three or four-hour journeys across Manchester to the Christie Hospital, staff in charge of its chemotherapy and some other services come out to residential and nursing homes and people’s journey times are cut down to 10 minutes. That is a very good thing. Will that type of service be included in this clause as drafted? I also want to talk about secondary services such as path labs. What happens with laboratory services? What happens when the treatment that the patient receives is wrong as a result of errors by lab services? Some labs happen to be within hospitals and some are not. Are they included? That is a key area to which this Bill would apply—to breast cancer screening and so forth. Will the Minister take the opportunity to answer those two points?