Health and Social Care Bill

The noble Baroness is quite right that this is patients and public. One of our concerns about some of these amendments which refer only to patients is because the whole of the public are potentially patients, or related to or caring for patients and so on. It therefore does have to be defined widely, and she is right that we are looking to the future. I am not sure that I would share her view as to the CQC, which indeed needs to help play its part in driving up quality, which underpins much in the Bill. Maybe I can carry on and address some of the specific points raised by noble Lords. The Bill preserves a clear distinction between the CQC and HealthWatch England. Although HealthWatch England will be established as a statutory committee of the CQC, it will be solely responsible for setting the direction of its own work and exercising particular functions. This will ensure that HealthWatch England targets issues and gathers evidence from the public to base its national advice on service standards and improvements. HealthWatch England will maintain its independent role by presenting the collective patient and public voice to the Secretary of State and to the relevant bodies. After listening to the concerns raised about the importance of reinforcing the distinction between the roles of the CQC and HealthWatch England, the Government made an amendment to the Bill in the other place that requires the CQC to respond in writing to the advice it receives from HealthWatch England. Similarly, HealthWatch England must publish a report on the way it has exercised its functions during the year and lay a copy before Parliament. This will be a distinct report by—and the responsibility of— HealthWatch England, as opposed to the general CQC report. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, suggested that local healthwatch would have no direct influence on CCGs. Let me see if I can answer some of those issues which have been raised in relation to local healthwatch. I cannot agree that this is a fair representation. Local healthwatch will have the function of making known the views of people and making reports and recommendations for service improvements to commissioners of local care services, among others. This is set out in Clause 180, which amends Section 221 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. The noble Lord also suggested that HealthWatch England should have regional arms. I cannot agree with him that this would be a good course of action. We want to see resources, wherever possible, channelled to the front line. One of the criticisms of the short-lived Commission for Patient and Public Involvement, which I have referred to before, was that this was too bureaucratic and its regional arms soaked up too many resources. We feel that having both a local and a national tier is sufficient. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, also asked about research. Local healthwatch will gather and present the views and experiences of local people to make reports and recommendations, and as part of this it may need to carry out studies. However, we have to remember that it is not primarily a research organisation. We have to emphasise that it is a champion of patients at local level.