NHS Redress Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 9:"Page 2, line 23, at end insert ““and" (   )   the giving of an apology in appropriate cases (where any such apology shall not be evidence of an admission of civil liability),”” The noble Earl said: This amendment, as I hope is obvious, proposes that the giving of an apology, where that is appropriate, should be an integral part of the NHS redress scheme. It is therefore fitting that I should begin with one myself. As has just been said, the amendment has been wrongly printed and unfortunately I did not spot it when the original list of amendments came out last Thursday. I should like to make two points here. First, in a situation where something has gone wrong in the care and treatment of a patient, what the redress scheme should offer to that patient first and foremost is an explanation and an apology. The Minister knows that I am not happy with the Government’s emphasis on monetary compensation. The money, in our view, should not occupy centre stage in the redress process. Rather, the important thing is the need for the patient to hear someone say that they are sorry for what happened and to explain the circumstances and the reasons for what went wrong. We know from surveys that these are the things above all other considerations that patients both want and need. The compensation aspect is very often quite secondary and in many cases unimportant. I believe that the Bill should make explicit mention of an apology as being a requirement of the scheme wherever such an apology is deemed appropriate. Secondly, contrary to the amendment as printed and in accordance with the amendment as correctly read out just now, an apology when it is given should not be taken as being tantamount to an admission of liability. It is important for us to remember that a clinical error may be negligent, but equally it may not be. In either case, if an error is found to have occurred nothing should inhibit those responsible from making a suitable apology. That is why it should be absolutely clear that the making of an apology has no bearing one way or the other on whether the error was or was not the result of negligence. That is an entirely separate issue. I would make a very similar point on Amendment No. 33, which is grouped with Amendment No. 9. Apart from an explanation and apology, what patients want is some kind of reassurance that lessons have been learnt from the mistakes that were made in relation to them and that action has been taken to minimise the risk of the same thing happening to someone else. That is why we believe that every report produced under the redress scheme which identifies and acknowledges failings in medical practice, whether or not as a result of negligence, should include a section comprising recommendations about future practice in order to prevent the recurrence of similar events. I hope that the Minister can reassure me on these points because they are in my view of very considerable importance. I beg to move.