My Lords, this has been a very good debate, again, and I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his sympathy. I really support the plea from the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, for more thought to be given to the specific area of redress for the three groups of patients she mentioned. Any of us who have met some of the women involved—I think in particular of the women I have met who have been affected by surgical mesh issues—will be taken with the huge damage that has been done to their lives and well-being. I think they deserve listening to.
I will also say that I was very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, for her support and for the information she brought to your Lordships, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and my noble friend Lady Wheeler, who pinpointed the need for action in this area.
5.15 pm
In relation to my first amendment, on the vaccine damage scheme, I was very glad to hear what the noble Earl had to say about the improvements coming as a
result of the transfer of responsibility to the DHSC, and the work being taken by the NHS Business Services Authority. He did not mention engagement with the patients, and I just wonder if he is prepared to give some kind of commitment that it would be possible for the patient groups to meet officials, the NHS Business Services Authority and a Minister, to just discuss the progress.
This is the second debate that your Lordships’ House has had on clinical negligence in the last few weeks. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, gave one of those speeches where he seemed to suggest that, in general, all was well with the world and progress was being made. I think one has to go back to the intervention made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson; unfortunately, experience suggests that in some way we have ended up with a damaged system where, instead of trying to reform what we do, there is always some kind of fantasy ahead that someone will come up with a magical no-fault system that most of us know is not going to happen because the cost would be open-ended. We need to look at how we can improve the current situation. I know what he said about NHS Resolution, and I know he has referred to the NAO report, but the delays in the current system and the failure of the NHS—still—to be open about failure shows that many things are still to be done.
However, having said that, I was hoping I could just tempt the noble Earl to say a little something about how those affected by vaccines—particularly by the Covid vaccine—might be brought into the system of discussing it.