My Lords, I will be brief. I am not a medical expert, as many are in this Chamber, but I have seen at close hand the value of the PHSO, particularly in the report in 2017 into eating disorders. For the reasons that I saw in that report, I have added my name to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger.
I appreciate the need for a safe space. However, there are two things that I would like to say. First, to follow on from what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, said, the PHSO does not apportion blame to individuals; it looks at systemic failures. It did this so well in its report on eating disorders, where it looked at failures across the system, rather than at individuals. Therefore, I think that medics, who are extremely intelligent people, will understand that it is not about apportioning blame and so they have nothing to fear—there will be no chilling effect on them as individuals, because it is about the systems.
Secondly, and again as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton said, the way the amendment is structured includes the ombudsman within the safe space, because there are such strong protections; the information given to the ombudsman cannot be released unless you go to the High Court. That is a very strong, ironclad protection, and again, I think medics would understand that and see that it is not something that would diminish the value of the safe space.
The point that I particularly want to make, since others have made the point about the constitution far better than I could, is that if there is this information in the future that the HSSIB has but the ombudsman does not, that will fundamentally undermine public confidence in the ombudsman’s ability to do its job. Let us not forget that the ombudsman is the last resort for members of the public when they have been let down by the NHS. If it does not have information that other people can get, what does that mean for people having confidence in the transparency and value of that process?
That is something that has not been mentioned so far tonight: the confidence of the public in the ombudsman to carry out its constitutional role to protect people and their families when there have been appalling failures, to give them some sense that someone may
not have to go through this in the future because the ombudsman has set in train a process that will make the system better.
As I say, I do not know enough about autism—the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, is not in her place to do it but there are other people who can talk about the role of the ombudsman and the importance of the report that it did on autism—but I know from my involvement with eating disorders that the work of the PHSO in its 2017 report was seismic in working alongside those of us who campaign desperately for changes in the treatment of eating disorders. It has done so much to give some sense of security to individuals and their families who have been let down that things might change. If we do not accept this PHSO amendment, public confidence in anything in the future will be fatally undermined.