Health and Social Care Bill

The noble Baroness will be fully aware, because she was a health Minister, that if there is no evidence of there being a risk then you do not choose to regulate. That is presumably why the previous Government chose not to. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, flagged up the position of anaesthetists’ assistants. I had interesting discussions yesterday with an anaesthetist and an anaesthetist’s assistant, and it was very enlightening. As the noble Baroness will know, the anaesthetist is of course ultimately responsible. Assistants must always be supervised by a consultant who needs to be available within two minutes. The issue that the noble Baroness raises is one of quality assurance. As she knows, the Royal College of Anaesthetists runs the training and the registration for those assistants. After they have done a science degree, generally it is 27 months of practice. If the Royal College of Anaesthetists judges that that is inadequate, on the basis of the kind of concerns that the noble Baroness raises, then it is clearly for it to say that there are risks, it has encountered risks, and that needs to be addressed. If this system comes under the quality assurance system that I mentioned earlier, there will be another body looking at whether that kind of training, assurance and registration is adequate. However, there have not been cases flagged up as causing concern. I also point out that there are few anaesthetists’ assistants. They are more generally used in other countries, I gather, but not so much in the United Kingdom. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, asked why there is not more statutory regulation. In some ways I think I have addressed that. Although compulsory statutory regulation is sometimes necessary, one has to look at the risks and at what is proportionate.