Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I rise to speak to one amendment in particular. I will be very brief. I support some of the comments made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hollins and Lady Finlay, about the clinicians’ need to have time where they can contribute to the work of the wider NHS. I strongly support Amendment 210. The noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, gave an excellent example of the value of the JSNA. I wish we could have a similar kind of needs assessment in the community for the care of people with chronic diseases. It might be good to use it to do so. I speak briefly to Amendment 219 about the performance assessment of the clinical commissioning groups. Quite rightly it says that the local health and wellbeing board should be consulted. My amendment asked the question: why not go wider than that? Although I used only the provider as an example of going wider to consult the performance of CCGs, it equally applies to consulting Monitor or even CQC. I look forward to a reply from the Minister as to why it should not be wider than just the health and wellbeing board.