Health and Social Care Bill

Something equivalent to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel was used earlier in the system. It was put in to bat with the local area by Monitor when it saw trouble coming down the railway track in the form of failure. I envisage that a standing group of people would be approved to work in this area, which Monitor would be able to assemble very quickly. My amendment proposes that a timescale is set for this panel to work with local people and to come back with a solution to the problem, but I think that more people than are currently approved for the reconfiguration panel will be needed because of the points made by my noble friend. In many parts of the country we are likely to have to intervene quite quickly because we have spent a lot of time over the past 10 or 20 years putting off decisions about some of these places. A lot of these places will come to Ministers, the national Commissioning Board and Monitor over the next few years, so we will need quite a few different panels.