NHS Redress Bill [Lords]

The Bill, as originally published, established quite clearly that legal advice could be available. We have strengthened that to ensure that legal advice must be available on the offer of redress and the settlement agreement. So that will come at the end of the process and enable the patient to make an informed judgment about whether to accept the offer or to reject it and pursue a court case instead. However, as a result of debate in another place, clause 8 will allow the patient and the trust together to instruct an independent medical expert, during the investigation of the incident or the complaint, to ensure that there is a full and agreed diagnosis of what has gone wrong. We have also introduced an amendment to clause 10 to enable the scheme to require the hospitals and trusts that are members of the scheme to prepare and publish an annual report about the cases that they have dealt with under the redress scheme and the lessons learned from them. Clause 14 will provide the power to ensure that wrongly directed complaints under the scheme are redirected to the appropriate body.