Health Bill [Lords]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be grateful for the hon. Gentleman's reverence—I will be doing well if I get close to such praise. Obviously, I have not had time to examine that particular decision. I give the hon. Gentleman a commitment that I will do so and write to him. The first chapter of the Bill relates to the NHS constitution and provides for further improving quality and giving patients greater say about their care. The Bill places a duty on all providers of NHS services to have regard to the first ever NHS constitution. It will also require the Secretary of State to review the constitution every 10 years and to report on its impact every three years. The constitution is a landmark document. It sets out the rights and responsibilities of patients and staff, bringing together existing legal rights with commitments to deliver the standards of service that patients can expect from the national health service. However, the constitution is far more than a piece of paper. It provides three concrete legal rights for patients: first, the right to recommended vaccines under a national immunisation programme; secondly, the right to all National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence-recommended drugs and treatments; and thirdly, the right to make choices about NHS care and the right to the information needed to make those choices. The constitution belongs to every one of us. It reflects what people, patients and staff say they want to see in a 21st-century health service, and it commits the NHS to delivering on that promise, now and in the future. By placing a legal duty on all providers of NHS services to have regard to the constitution, we are reaffirming the right of patients to access the best possible treatment, while ensuring that the fundamental principles of the NHS are protected for future generations. The proposal for an NHS constitution was the central recommendation of a report that I published for the then Secretary of State for Health, following a period of shadowing work at every level of the system. It is a pleasure to see the constitution as the centrepiece of the Bill, and I was encouraged by the wide welcome that it received when the Bill was in another place. To improve the focus on quality, the Bill will place a legal duty on all NHS providers to provide annual quality accounts, in the same way that they are required to publish financial accounts. That information will be in the public domain, so that patients will have clear information on the quality of care provided by local health services. Lord Darzi's definition of quality includes patient experience. The quality accounts will therefore cover not only the quality of clinical care, but whether patients feel that they have been treated with dignity and respect. As Lord Darzi has pointed out, the NHS is good at invention, but it can be slow to adopt new technologies and treatments, and the spread of new ideas is variable. We are taking several measures to foster a more innovative culture in the NHS. NHS Evidence provides all the clinical and non-clinical evidence on new treatments and best practice in one place, through one easily accessible portal. The £220 million strategic health authority regional innovation funds will help front-line staff to develop, grow and spread new ideas, delivering genuine improvements in the quality of care that people receive. The Bill will provide further support for innovation by enabling the Secretary of State to make payments, as prizes, to promote innovation in health services. Innovation prizes will reward those front-line staff who have excelled and will encourage others to do likewise. In order to give patients more choice and control over the care that they receive, the Bill brings forward measures that will enable the NHS to pilot direct payments, as part of a wider programme of piloting personal health budgets. Personal health budgets could work in many ways. The NHS is already setting up pilots where the personal budget is not physically held by the patient—rather, there is a notional amount—or where it is held by a third party on the patient's behalf. However, where it makes sense, we also want to allow the option of direct cash payments to patients. The Bill provides powers for that, building on the experience of direct payments in social care, which have transformed the lives of many people over the past decade.