NHS Redress Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 18:"Page 3, line 17, at end insert—" ““(   )   The only relevant circumstance in which proceedings cannot be commenced is when an injury has been sustained and where an offer under the scheme in respect of the same injury has previously been rejected.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in this group of amendments—and, indeed, the next—we return to issues on which my noble friends Lady Neuberger and Lady Tonge and I probed the Government in Grand Committee. They all seek clarity about who may commence proceedings under the scheme, and how that might be done. I return to these matters because, while the Minister set out his response in a letter with some clarity, he has not sought to make the Bill itself any clearer. Most of the people who, unfortunately for them, have to commence proceedings will not see the Minister’s letter, but they will see the Bill. I am a great believer in having information in the right place, so that it is easily accessible. Amendment No. 18 seeks to make clear that this is not an unending process, and that it should be known that redress can be only a one-time act—it is not something to which they can return on the same matter. Amendment No. 20 makes provision for commencement of a scheme by a member if asked to do so by an individual. In his letter of 20 December 2005 to me and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, the Minister said:"““I would like to take this opportunity to reassure you that it is fully intended that individuals will be able to apply to the scheme directly and thus initiate proceedings under the scheme””." I would like to take the opportunity to invite the Minister to make that clear in the Bill, where his intentions will be paid a great deal more heed. In doing so, it would not—as the Minister goes on to suggest in his letter—give the impression that it is only an application-based scheme. That was one of his reasons for not doing so before. The amendments that we discussed previously about openness and the need for reporting in no way undermined what the Minister spoke about at great length, with which we agree. That is that the measure should bring about a change of culture within the NHS. It should be something that NHS staff and organisations feel free to initiate for the benefit of patients. I do not believe that stating in the Bill that an individual may trigger the scheme in any way undermines that. Finally, Amendment No. 21 seeks to deal with an issue that has been raised again by the Law Society. In his letter to me and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, the noble Lord said that he did not wish to have such a provision because he thought that limiting the power to bring proceedings under the scheme to the individual who had been harmed would be too narrowing. I understand why he wishes to do that, but this amendment is here to seek from the Government a response to a slightly different but related matter, which is how it would be possible to prevent an individual, who is not the individual who has directly been harmed, from deciding that a case should go through the redress scheme—rather than by any of the other avenues that may be open, such as litigation—and thereby making the individual take an easy and quick route that may not be most beneficial to them. That is the loophole that the amendment is seeking to probe. In the Minister’s full letter to us he did not address that matter, which is why I tabled the amendment. I beg to move.