UK Parliament / Open data

Health and Care Bill

My Lords, I want to briefly make clear my support for this group of amendments and try to be consistent with what I said on the previous group. The only amendment which causes me to have pause for thought is Amendment 183. The NHS, perfect in every form of course, has been known to have its arteries fur up occasionally. Sometimes there is a need for scale in some services. I want to mention three or four services where scale, after clinical consideration, is important. Pathology is a good example, where we need to have more scale than many of the local pathology departments. Another one, which the Royal College of Surgeons has advocated, is elective surgery hubs, which may mean taking stuff away from a particular local hospital. Another good example is the issue of stroke specialisation, which is beneficial for patients. I have given you three examples where we do not want to totally neutralise the Secretary of State. Sometimes Ministers have a use; it may be few and far between, but occasionally they have some use. We do

not want to say that you cannot ever be a catalyst for change. That seems a bit drastic in Amendment 183, and I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, to think about that, because sometimes scale is important, with clinical advice for the benefit of patients.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

818 c381 

Session

2021-22

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
Back to top