Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, my name is also on these amendments, and I would like to speak in their support. I would also like very strongly to support the point made by my noble friend Lady Emerton. The NHS is dependent on the places where people are educated for the supply of its future staff. Therefore, it becomes absolutely crucial that, right from the day of entry into that educational process, students are viewed as part of the continuing spectrum of the workforce of the NHS. They are the potential workforce. The danger is that those who are organising educational courses can often view something such as the NHS Constitution as something extra that they have to include somewhere in their curriculum, rather than making sure that it is in embedded as a theme running through every aspect of the curriculum. I have seen this in some courses, where new pieces of legislation—and the Mental Capacity Act is one of those—have been added on as if they were bolt-ons, rather than underpinning the way every patient is approached at all times. Therefore, it is important to look at educational provision. I turn to the second of these amendments. I fear that if we do not include original research, along with innovation, it risks being divisive. Original research may be the thing that triggers the subsequent innovation, and whoever undertook that deserves to be recognised for the work they did. It is also very evident that some of the more innovative and service-based research is coming from the healthcare professions beyond medicine, which are nursing and the allied healthcare professions. To encourage them to have a research approach, as well as to innovate in their practice, would foster the whole research agenda and drive forward the frontiers of knowledge. Therefore, I cannot see what there is to lose by including the words "or original research" in that amendment, but I can see that we stand to lose quite a lot by not including them.