Health Bill

I very much welcome these government amendments. For my part I am happy to recommend to the Grand Committee that they should be accepted, if the Minister moves them. It seems to me that he has come forward with a very satisfactory adjustment of how ““healthcare-associated infection”” is defined in the Bill. As he says, the risk to patients is not only that the organisms are, or may be, present in the patients’ surroundings but also that the way in which patients are treated may heighten the probability that they succumb to an infection that they brought in with them. That is an important dimension to this debate, which I am glad that the Government have accepted. Of course, the situation of healthcare workers is equivalent and analogous. It is important that we get exactly right the nature of the hazard and what we are trying to guard against. My Amendment No. 56 was designed to flag up a concern originally raised by the Royal College of Nursing that the original definition of healthcare-associated infection did not precisely encapsulate the nature of the hazard and the risk. I do not pretend that my proposed wording is perfect, but I tried to capture the essence of what I felt the Royal College was getting at. These organisms are present in virtually all healthcare environments and, I dare say, in virtually all individuals. It is not that a patient or a healthcare worker may be exposed to these organisms; it is that they are ever-present. Does the Minister feel there is an issue here? If not, why not? It would be useful to have that on the record, if only to enable the Royal College to advise the likes of myself on whether it is satisfied with the definition as it will be once we have accepted the government amendments.