NHS Redress Bill [HL]

I support the noble Earl, Lord Howe. He has made a number of points which I will follow up on when we debate the Question whether the clause should stand part of the Bill. I want to speak to Amendments Nos. 51 and 53. On Monday the noble Lord, Lord Warner, talked about the ““sheer poetry”” of the Bill. I cannot resist saying that he will therefore appreciate that every word in a poem is important. These two small probing amendments have an importance which is perhaps not immediately obvious. Clause 9(1) talks about,"““the provision of assistance (by way of representation or otherwise)." I wish to probe what ““otherwise”” means. Subsection (4) says that the Secretary of State must have regard to the principle that,"““the provision of services under the arrangements in connection with a particular case should, so far as practicable, be independent of any person to whose conduct the case relates or who is involved in dealing with the case””." These issues are slightly more important than they seem. Having read the clause several times, I am not certain quite what its scope is. What does it cover when it talks about assistance and what does it not cover? The noble Baroness has made it clear that ““assistance”” means legal representation. But what does ““representation or otherwise”” mean? Does it mean translation? Does it mean somebody who lacks capacity having an advocate under the Mental Capacity Act 2005? Does it mean providing transport for people who have difficulty getting to NHS premises, because many of them do? Or does it mean financial assistance? What does the phrase mean within this very loosely drawn clause? If it genuinely means enabling people to take part in the process, it could mean all manner of things, some of them quite serious such as legal representation and some very mundane. Does it mean providing training sessions to increase knowledge of medical terminology so that someone can understand the papers presented to them? The second amendment is about the process being independent. Throughout our deliberations my noble friend Lady Neuberger and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, have challenged the perception of the scheme, as it is to be run by one body within the NHS. It is difficult to see how anyone could consider it fair that someone who is not independent of the case could be involved in its investigation. I shall second-guess the Minister: I imagine that she will talk about the difficulties in some areas of the country of finding within a hospital someone who is suitable and would be completely independent of any case. If colleagues from the same unit or hospital were involved in running a scheme that in its totality is not seen as independent, is it possible to expect people to regard the service as genuinely independent? Can the noble Baroness give us some clarification on this rather unclear clause?