Health Bill [HL]

My comments will be relatively brief, as the noble Earl and my noble friend Lord Patel have already expressed very clearly most of what I would wish to say. The noble Earl highlighted the crucial importance of the education of staff in the NHS and research. I draw attention to principle 3 of the NHS constitution, which states: "““The NHS aspires to the highest standards of excellence and professionalism—in the provision of high-quality care that is safe, effective and focused on patient experience; in the planning and delivery of the clinical and other services it provides; in the people it employs and the education, training and development they receive; in the leadership and management of its organisations; and through its commitment to innovation and to the promotion and conduct of research to improve the current and future health and care of the population””." Yet on those particular aspects of the constitution, the handbook is almost completely silent. Bearing in mind that quality accounts must take account of the standard of service provided to patients, and of course to staff, I believe that these issues of education, research and innovation must in some way be mentioned and referred to. As the noble Earl said, my noble friend Lord Patel tabled a Question earlier today on clinical trials. The establishment of high quality in an era of evidence-based medicine is often based on the outcome of such clinical trials. I must say that I would wish to have specifically mentioned in this document on quality accounts the outcome of clinical trials and the evidence base on which quality services are provided. I hope that the Government will give attention to that. I do not speak particularly to this amendment, but I believe that the issue is crucial to quality accounts as a whole. I am very firmly in favour of quality accounts being provided, if, as I said at Second Reading—the noble Earl highlighted this—the collection of the information will not be too burdensome on the staff who are required to provide them. For that reason, certain principles relating to the nature of the information to be included in these quality accounts is something to which the Government should pay very close attention, while bearing in mind throughout that the outcome of clinical trials and the importance of evidence-based medicine is highlighted.