General and Specialist Medical Practice (Education, Training and Qualifications) Order 2010

I thank noble Lords across the House for their support for this important order. I hope that I can answer some of the questions that we have been asked. I do not need to respond to the question of the noble Earl about the review of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the merger—in fact, it was not really a question, because the noble Earl agreed with us that there was no restraint on the noble Lord’s work from this issue and that it was an organisational matter. The noble Earl also asked about primary legislation. The answer to that is our old favourite; Section 60 of the Health Act 1999 provides the power to amend primary legislation. The noble Earl will recall, given that we have dealt with several orders in that way, that the process is speeded up when we can take powers under Section 60. However, the safeguard is, of course, that these orders have to be debated and agreed by both Houses of Parliament. The noble Earl also raised the issue of different types of legislation, which relates to the point that I have just covered. Our approach is to put the overarching framework into the Medical Act 1983 but much of the operational detail into subordinate legislation. This will help to ensure that legislative provisions can be amended more easily if necessary and enable a speedy response to changes in the system of medical education and training; for example, possibly those arising out of the review being conducted by the noble Lord, Lord Patel. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, raised the issue of re-registration. The GMC already has powers to include doctors on the specialist register in an emergency. The noble Baroness also raised the question of revalidation and asked what happens to doctors. Doctors undergoing a period of retraining would normally remain on the specialist register. However, the noble Baroness raised an interesting point. If she thinks that the current provisions are not sufficient, we would certainly be very happy to discuss them with her in more detail.