Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I support Amendments 15 and 19, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, to which I have added my name. In so doing, I speak as a practising a clinician and I wish to emphasise the wise point made by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, about the need to ensure that the Bill describes important facets of what needs to be achieved to improve culture within the NHS. At Oral Questions today, we heard a discussion about hydration policy. Clearly, in a healthcare system, it is important that the culture is appropriate. Therefore, an emphasis on specifying ““health outcomes”” and ““clinical quality standards”” is also important because that will drive a cultural emphasis on the fact that improvement of health is the purpose of the Bill. The failure specifically to recognise, on page 2 in line 17, the issue of outcomes being specifically those of health, and in line 27 the quality standards to be specifically those of clinical quality, is potentially an important failure that should be recognised. I hope that in responding to this debate the Minister can confirm that with the emphasis on health outcomes and clinical quality standards, the purpose of the Bill will be emphasised in the language used in the Bill.