NHS Redress Bill [HL]

I support the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in this and I wish to raise two points under Amendments Nos. 55 and 56. Can the Minister tell us a little more about the ““specified person”” in subsection (2)(h)? I ask that because we are concerned about this. It refers to the,"““scheme to charge a specified person with responsibility for overseeing the carrying out of specified functions””." He said earlier that it would be someone with a degree of independence in the trust. I do not know whether he would make that same remark about this ““specified person””, but I would question whether in NHS trusts there are many people with a degree of independence. That has never been the case in my experience. People are very loyal to a trust and are often fearful of speaking out against it. Therefore, while we all support the idea of the NHS Redress Bill and we all want it to happen, there is something very incestuous about it; it involves people investigating themselves and we do not see any independent or outside person having any input. If the Minister could reassure me that the specified person would have to be totally independent of the trust and who would look at the lessons learned and say to the trust, ““You must do this or do that””, it would be valuable to the public. On our Amendment No. 56, it is also important that these findings be made public. If old Mr Jones falls out of bed, someone complains and he gets some compensation, we need to know what that hospital or NHS establishment has done to prevent other people falling out of bed—and the public need that reassurance. I hope that the Minister can satisfy us on those two issues.