Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 338, as I strongly agree with the Royal College of Nursing that mandatory regulation for all healthcare support workers, in order to ensure standardised training and therefore a suitable skilled workforce, is the best way forward. As currently proposed, the health Bill provides for a voluntary register, which the RCN believes to be insufficient. A voluntary register will not protect patients from inadequate healthcare workers, who will be impossible to regulate. I am concerned that nurses who have been struck off the register can then take jobs as unregistered healthcare assistants. One only has to look at the dangers patients have been put in when patients died of insulin poisoning at Stepping Hill Hospital near Manchester and nurses were found to be stealing drugs, at the terrible suffering of patients at the Mid Staffordshire foundation trust and at the appalling treatment of residents at the Winterbourne View care home near Bristol. The latest reports from the Audit Commission, the Patients Association and the CQC highlight further problems with care of the frail and elderly. Is there not enough evidence to make the Government realise that something positive has to be done to make matters safer and better for patients? I agree with the Royal College of Nursing that it is vital to quality patient services that anyone who is responsible for delivering care should be regulated and accountable for their actions. I received a letter recently from someone living in Malta, who said that in the state hospitals they have colour-coded uniforms for all the staff. Care assistants are clearly distinguishable in maroon and white. We have to get our house in order for the sake of patients, who seem to be becoming more and more vulnerable, rather than safer. Sitting suspended. Debate on Amendment 338 resumed.