Health and Social Care Bill

I am grateful to my noble friend for that reinforcement. I regret that, within some NHS trusts and some provider organisations, there is not the same approach. There is a concern that it is better to keep a patient, or the family of a patient, in ignorance and hope that the whole matter goes away. The purpose of the amendment is not to penalise the individual clinician—we all recognise that accidents happen—but to foster the culture of openness that the department wants to see; it wants to ensure that that duty is reflected, not only as far as the individual professionals are concerned, but also as far as the organisations are concerned. Otherwise, too often the lawyers and managers will say, ““In the interests of the trust, let us try to keep this quiet””. I am glad to hear that it does not happen in every instance, as I am sure it does not, but the purpose of the amendment is to provide a statutory framework that will make it quite clear to all those who might otherwise be tempted to cover up these incidents that they must say, ““This is important and we have to be open””.