Health Bill

I support the amendments in this group. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, has outlined very clearly my particular concern about the bureaucratic absurdities of elderly people in residential care and nursing homes. I visit many of those homes. There are always pots of old spectacles that do not tie up with the residents and people who are waiting to have eye tests from a visiting optometrist. It is not popular with local optometrists and contractors do not want to do it, so they have to be persuaded to come to the home. So we have this bureaucratic process in order to get someone to come. Nearly always, they want to do six residents at once. We need to streamline the regulations so that there is an enabling factor in the Bill to support PCTs getting people there faster. If people cannot see what they are doing, it is not surprising that they fall over quite frequently.