Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I must say I am very uneasy because I think that the arm's-length bodies review completely missed the point. It was my understanding that the NPSA itself was not charged with improving safety. The whole point about setting it up was to have an independent body to which people in the NHS could report adverse incidents. Information would then be used in different ways, first in the issuing of safety bulletins and reports on a pattern of safety incidents, which would improve safety in the health service. It was always the expectation that responsibility for safety rested with the health service and the regulator, CQC. It is a fundamental confusion of roles to suggest that the body that collects this information should also be responsible for performance-managing safety. The moment you mix them up, people will be inhibited from reporting safety incidents. That is our key concern on this. Putting the reporting mechanism under the auspices of the Commissioning Board, albeit to be contracted out, will have a chilling impact on people who report. I think the architecture is wrong. I suspect incidents will fall in future. It would have been best to keep the roles separate and independent. I think I will test the opinion of the House on this. Division on Amendment 292 Contents 187; Not-Contents 244. Amendment 292 disagreed. Moved by