NHS Redress Bill [Lords]

I am on your side here—remember? I conducted that poll to get a feeling for the attitude of various grass-roots employees of the NHS. I asked for their thoughts in a very neutral way, without prompting. There seemed to be a considerable consensus that a completely in-house investigation causes problems, not necessarily because of a lack of desire for openness, but because often internal tensions and loyalties come into play and are played on in a way that can be unacceptable. For that reason, there seem to be a number of people who strongly support the concept of independence. I was accused of being unscientific, but, as the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) said earlier, a number of bodies support this concept. I think we have to approach it from a patient perspective, because unfortunately patients can sometimes have a deep mistrust of the NHS. When things are going well, people have nothing but praise, but when things go wrong, time and again there is the accusation that ““they all cover up for each other””. That perception must be challenged, and that is why the Bill as it stands is so dangerous. I am far from convinced that ““they all cover up for each other””, but it does happen from time to time. For those reasons, there is a huge advantage in introducing someone from outside the organisation: people can talk more frankly, as long as the outside person has some powers to access the information that is required to complete the investigation. If that person is independent, the process will have much greater buyin from the public and, I suspect, much greater cooperation from staff who are involved, directly or indirectly. The outside person clearly needs to be independent. The Minister questioned us at some length to try to get details of who would employ the person and whether they would be truly independent of the NHS. I confess that I felt that the Minister was taking the view that we, as Opposition Members, often take in Standing Committees, because we are often faced with something fairly broadbrush from the Government and are asked to take a lot of things on trust. [Interruption.] The Minister says that he explains, and I concede that he has tried very hard to explain, but I can think of numerous Standing Committees in which I have served where the detail of proposals was extremely hazy––so the Minister is not exactly unique in this.