Health Bill

Of course, the Secretary of State and the Department of Health have already issued guidelines and good practice guidance on infection control and other areas as part of our ongoing programme of action against healthcare-associated infections. I can reassure the Committee that, as knowledge increases—particularly expert knowledge—we will disseminate that to people as quickly as possible. Furthermore, the documents on which guidance is extant at the moment, together with advice from other organisations, are listed at the back of the current draft of the code of practice. We have done that for the benefit and convenience of those implementing the code in the NHS. Over time, no doubt that list of documents will be updated. It is worth bearing in mind that Clause 14 also sets out the arrangements for issuing and revising the code. It places a duty on the Secretary of State to keep the code under review. That must mean taking account of new information, new guidance and new guidelines and allows her to revise all or part of the code should she consider it necessary or desirable. But she does have a duty to consult where appropriate before issuing or making what she considers to be a substantial revision to the code. There is an interrelationship between guidance, guidelines and the code itself. Over time, some things which are guidance will no doubt be promoted into the code and we will keep up to date the list of guidance and guidelines recorded in the code. The noble Baroness raised the issue of an electronic infection control manual. My understanding is that research shows that professionals want a one-stop shop approach to this type of guidance. That is why it is being made available through the National Resource for Infection control, which was launched in May 2005. I will give more details of that to the noble Baroness when I write to her and the noble Earl on the other matters I have promised to reply on. That is how we shall conduct ourselves on the code and guidelines, and we do not believe that it is necessary to put that requirement in the form in Amendment No. 58. However, I accept the reasons that the noble Baroness gave for moving her amendment.