Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, this has been another excellent debate. I listened very carefully—as I did before—to the views expressed. Overall, there is clearly complete agreement on all sides of the House that the voice of patients and the public should be at the heart of the NHS. As the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Harris, and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, and others indicated, the history of how previous Governments tried to implement this is tortuous. The recent past has borne witness to a number of attempts to do it, and noble Lords referred to some of the problems. No attempt—not even Community Health Councils—managed to fulfil the worthy intentions of its architects, and we went from one to another. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, recognised—I appreciate his words—we seek here to take the strengths from past attempts, build on them and ameliorate the weaknesses as we develop our proposals for HealthWatch England. In the light of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, emphasised, it is worth remembering one of these previous attempts: the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health. It was established in July 2003 and operated nationally and regionally, following regional government boundaries. Within five years it had been abolished after being seen to lack clout, to be too bureaucratic and too top-down for the public and those on the ground. Perhaps I may again remind the House of the judgment from the Health Select Committee's 2007 Report into Patient and Public Involvement in the NHS, which stated: "““The evidence we received was overwhelmingly critical of the Commission””." We are convinced that trying to recreate the commission is not the best way forward, and instead propose that HealthWatch England should be a statutory committee hosted—that was a very good description from the noble Lord, Lord Patel—by the CQC, which is a far more viable option. I am well aware that this proposal has met with concern.