NHS Redress Bill [HL]

Perhaps I may add to the list of questions. I, too, was concerned about how the scheme might apply to the private sector where there are contracts from the NHS, but it applies just as much to the voluntary, not-for-profit sector. I would cite, for instance, hospices. I want gently to probe, yet again, the Minister on who the scheme members are and how primary care fits in. Primary and community care might well be providing the kind of services where this might be an issue. Community hospitals are a good case in point. The scheme membership provision is a little unclear and we would like to know more about it. Secondly, I return to the person who is to advise the body on learning from mistakes. Can we tease that out a little? Unlike the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I sometimes think that a non-executive director or the body of non-executive directors can push through, in one way or another, a culture change. However, we are not clear what the role of the board of such an NHS body might be. Is it an individual? Can it be a corporate responsibility of the board as a whole? Do you really want one director to be responsible? That director might be weak and not necessarily strong enough to hold up issues to other people within the organisation. Finally, on the issue of going public, we feel strongly that the public will have confidence in the scheme if they believe that an apology and an explanation is given and have a reassurance that this will not happen again. They will want to see that in public. Like the Minister, I believe that you can do well with anonymity, and the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, could perhaps say more about that. We have good experience with an anonymised investigation of complaints and surgical procedures which have gone wrong. The Royal College of Surgeons ran a good system, as did the chest and heart surgeons. We have examples of specialists anonymising and then going public on what they found. It seems to me that we need to tease out the issue of acting in public and reassuring the public and have greater detail.