My Lords, I too spoke on Tuesday about my concerns about listing the specific membership for the NHS England board. I have similar concerns to those that the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, have just set out. However, there is a slight difference with this issue, in that the core purpose of an integrated care board is to integrate. So I recognise the very real concerns that noble Lords across the Committee have mentioned about the importance of being able to hear the voices of all the different elements of our health and care system, to hear patients’ needs loud and clear and to make it a board that genuinely works, as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, has just set out.
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I offer a small suggestion, building on what my noble friend Lord Hunt has said: in the drafting of this Bill, we should think more about what we want the integrated care boards to do—that is, their duties, and we have already had long and important debates on mental health and health inequalities—and how we will measure whether or not they deliver on those duties, and less on specifying in a lot of detail how they will do it.
That is why I find it hard to support the amendments, although, again, as I did on Tuesday, I very much understand and support the sentiment behind them.