Health Bill [HL]

I shall try to answer, first, the question about the National Quality Board. Membership of the board is within three major contributors: national bodies, including the Care Quality Commission, Monitor, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence and, I hope soon, the National Patient Safety Agency. I have no doubt that I have omitted one or two bodies. There will be expert groups in quality, which could be from Academe or from international organisations. I understand that the appointments commission is going through interviews at the moment. Finally, there are patient groups and lay representatives, representing patients and the public. On the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, about NICE guidance: that is exactly what we are trying to achieve. You can get quality improvements only if you start looking at the evidence base, the guidance and guidelines. The bit of NICE that has never been openly debated is, mostly, the appraisal of drugs and devices. NICE has a much bigger role, which has been well recognised internationally, in the guidance and the evidence base. Through this process, we will encourage more uptake of NICE guidelines in designing pathways of care. That was the whole ethos of the next-stage review: eight pathways of care and 10 regions challenging themselves over what NICE has published on the latest evidence on patient care over the past decade.