Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-09
Topic: Health
Gillian Merron (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this is a mixed group of amendments and it has been extremely helpful to hear from noble Lords about the various aspects. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for introducing the group. Amendment 227 is about the powers to merge NHS Digital and NHSX into the new transformation directorate of NHS England. It would also allow the health and social care information centre to be swept up in the changes. This amounts to the abolition of the health and social care information centre and I look forward to hearing from the Minister about the implications for the integrity of patient data and what safeguards might be applied I draw the Minister’s attention to the article in the Health Service Journal on 8 February entitled "Revealed: How NHSE’s New Transformation Directorate Will Operate". It sets out how this new transformation directorate will function and how all the appointments have already been made despite Parliament having not yet completed its deliberations. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister on this point Amendment 228 modifies the power to transfer functions. It has already been argued that this power function should not be given so lightly. The amendment emphasises that point In the previous debate, we heard some excellent contributions about patient data and the need for safeguards but also about the need for public confidence in the systems, process and governance. It is far from clear that the changes to allow the Secretary of State to take powers in this complex and contested territory are at all wise I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for Amendments 229 and 230, which seek to limit the scope of the powers of the Secretary of State. Since we continue to oppose these additional powers of the Secretary of State altogether, we certainly acknowledge the need to limit that scope, as defined within the amendments Amendment 318 is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, who has set out the scale and the reality of the challenge of waiting lists and how that affects the wisdom or otherwise of the Bill and its timing. I emphasise that we are now talking about reducing numbers on a waiting list to below 1 million, but that is not only due to Covid. The NHS went into the pandemic crisis of waiting lists with a pre-existing crisis of its own. It is important that the Minister addresses the fact that this has been going on for some time. Just how long it will really take for the recent recovery plan to reduce the length of the waiting lists for hospital treatment below 1 million is far from clear. As we have heard, this amendment rightly highlights the points about the pre-emption of Parliament and the fact, which we have raised on several occasions, in the Chamber and in meetings, that appointments have already been made ahead of Parliament coming to a conclusion. That remains a matter of concern, as the Minister is well aware The remaining amendments in this miscellaneous group are those from the Government, which are consequential on obligations and relations with the devolved Administrations. We were advised by the Minister that these would be forthcoming, somewhat late on in consideration of the Bill. We thank the Minister for advising us, but we cannot support these amendments as our position relates to the original clauses to which they relate, as they are not ones with which we find favour. I hope that the Minister will reflect and respond on the points raised in this debate.