I come back to my earlier point: the bar is set high here because wilful neglect has to involve ill treatment that was intentional or reckless. The courts have traditionally interpreted that in a very narrow way, which is as it should be. I say this again and on advice: we do not believe that a doctor exercising his or her clinical judgment would fall within the scope of that offence.
I should make a couple of other points here. Amendment 33 refers only to “a registered medical practitioner”. The implication of that would be that other types of healthcare professionals exercising clinical judgement would not be excluded because they are not specified. So, for example, a triage nurse working in an A&E department would have very reasonable cause for concern about the kind of clinical judgments that they have to make perhaps not being outside the scope of the offence, because they are not explicitly mentioned in the Bill. Clearly, I would not want to create that kind of confusion and I am sure that the noble Lord would not either.
I hope that I have been able to demonstrate that the Government have worked hard to ensure that a whole range of issues and concerns were properly considered in the formulation of the new offence of ill treatment or wilful neglect. In particular, I hope that I have been able to reassure the noble Baroness and the noble Lords on their specific concerns and that she will now feel able to withdraw her amendment.