Health and Social Care Bill

In my day-to-day life, I have to do what they call ““oversight””. The trouble with oversight is that it is always remote. The person who comes on the round is the parish priest or the diocesan bishop. The moment you begin to take oversight seriously from a distance, you are in real trouble. How do you know that the delivery of what you want will work? I am not so certain that I want this Commissioning Board to have oversight of both clinical issues and the senates. That would lie somewhere else, not with the board. It is to the board that Monitor, NICE, clinical senates and networks, and the Care Quality Commission actually report. I can understand the other factors in the Bill but the moment you include the business of, "““overseeing sub-national clinical senates and networks””," you are in real trouble. What is that, by the way? I remain uncertain. We certainly need a clear spelling out of what senates are for. That is a separate question from whether the board should oversee their work, let alone if we understood it. I am not one to suggest that this amendment is helpful. What would be most helpful would be to hear from the noble Earl what are the senates, what are these networks, and where you would locate the whole question of accountability and responsibility. I do not think it is the board; otherwise you are giving it a much bigger function when it already has five functions; and there are further provisions in the schedule. If you really want the board to fail, add on more work. So my view is that it should not have oversight of the sub-national groups. However, I am still confused. Will the noble Earl tell us what the senates are for? Networks I can understand; but what are the senates for? If he explains, we may actually see that this amendment is redundant.