Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I seem to be turning into a legalistic nit-picker here today, because I am exceedingly sympathetic to what they are driving at. I am particularly sympathetic to Amendment 34 about the prize. Of course, it is an NHS prize, meant for the delivery of innovation in NHS care. Quite whether this is the right amendment to ensure that the right people get prizes for research, or whether it would need to be translational research done within the NHS, I am not sure. But I am very sympathetic to this amendment, even though it may be very difficult in practice to translate that into a part of the Bill. The problem with Amendment 6 is that we have a definition of the discharge of NHS functions. Clause 2 relates to the duty to have regard to the NHS Constitution, and states that each of the bodies listed, ""must, in performing its NHS functions, have regard to the NHS Constitution"." Then an NHS function is described as, ""the provision, commissioning or regulation of NHS services"." In a way, those bodies are already articulated as to who does provide, commission or regulate services. It all depends on whether or not universities and FE colleges discharge any NHS function by delivering educational services. Legally, they probably do not under the definition included in this part of the Bill. That of course is a pity, because I would particularly like to support the notion of my noble friend Lord Walton and the comments of my noble friend Lady Emerton about the crucial nature of getting the principles of the NHS Constitution into the training of nursing and other professions concerned with medicine, as well as medicine itself. To do that, those principles of care need to go right back to the beginning of training. This would be a marvellous place in the Bill to put that. It is also true that universities should deliver education and research with regard to healthcare. I very much support the principles, but the way that the NHS Constitution is worded and who its functions should be discharged by mean that these amendments are not quite right. However, I am very sympathetic to what they are driving at.