Health Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I am proud to introduce a Bill that is a landmark in the protection of public health and the improvement of our health services. It does three key things. It gives us power to ban smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces, it strengthens our hand in the battle against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and other hospital infections, and it contains a series of measures that will strengthen control of dangerous drugs, improve pharmaceutical and ophthalmic services and help to deal with fraud in the national health service. I realise that the House may be particularly interested in the provisions on smoking, but I want to make a few brief points about other aspects of the Bill first to ensure that they are given due attention. The first commandment of the medical profession is ““Do no harm””. Unfortunately, as we all know, there are occasions when patients are harmed, not healed, by their hospitals. It is not surprising that MRSA and other health care-associated infections are of great concern to members of the public, particularly if someone in the family or neighbourhood has suffered from them. Part 2 of the Bill—clauses 13 to 15—gives us stronger powers to reduce MRSA and other infections to the absolute minimum. We were the first Government to require surveillance for MRSA, and we are already using the information to help drive down infection rates. We set a target of no later than 2008 for the halving of MRSA infections. Indeed, some of our specialist hospitals such as Guy’s and St. Thomas’, which treat some of the most complex cases in the country, and in early 2004 had among the highest MRSA rates, had already nearly halved their infection rates a year later. The Bill builds on the work that we are already doing; it provides for a legally binding code of practice on health care-associated infections, which will apply to any relevant NHS body. The code will be based on existing best practice, and a draft on which we consulted earlier this year was well received. It will be backed up by new duties for the Healthcare Commission to ensure that it is observed, including the power to serve an improvement notice.