Health and Social Care Bill

Can I also ask the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, about his amendment, in which he proposes setting up another very strong bureaucracy? It is a corporate body, known as a clinical senate; I presume, because it has a proper officer, that it will have a range of officials. It is suggested that it should revalidate doctors within the area, but I am wondering how that would work with the GMC and others. It will maintain a whole system of clinical governance within clinical commissioning groups and also authorise some of the clinical commissioning groups. I can understand the noble Lord’s wish for some strategic leadership. I have been a regional chairman—and I have to say that our medical advisory groups were really excellent compared to those of south-east Thames. We had really good ones. But I am anxious about this matter. I sense that this is simply a probing amendment, because the membership of what the noble Lord proposes would be extremely bureaucratic. I understood that these were advisory boards, and that it was to try to get some of the clinical input from the acute centre into the commissioning groups so that they understood perhaps more clearly what they were commissioning in terms of acute services. I very much look forward to what my noble friend is going to tell us as to how he sees this issue. But I must say to the most right reverend Primate—I think I have got that right—that if he can manage the Anglican church he really could manage the National Health Service.