My Lords, I, too, welcome the principle behind the noble Baroness’s Amendment 16 but I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, that Health Education England may not be the right place for this. At various times in our debates I have banged on about the regulation of healthcare assistants, because not only would it reassure employers and patients that standards were being met but being on a register gives individuals a degree of self-respect and sense of identity and it boosts their morale. In a way, it is a pity that we got rid of state enrolled nurses some time ago when we moved to university-educated nurses. In effect, that has been very successful and nurses have done very well—they do a marvellous job—but we have left a gap where the SENs were.
Amendment 23, which moves slightly along this same route, may be as far as we can go but, if we do have mandatory training, that will inevitably mean that someone has to produce a register of those who
have received such training. This may not be quite the right place for it but we might get there by another route.