My Lords, I, too, welcome the Government’s amendment establishing the patient safety commissioner. This is highly significant and a great tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and her team. I should also declare an interest I must declare an interest as a member of the GMC board.
The noble Baroness’s report, First Do No Harm, is a stark and moving account of how thousands of patients were let down in a serious and life-changing way. I go back to her report because she found that the healthcare system, in which she included the NHS, private providers, regulators, professional bodies, and pharmaceutical and device manufacturers, was disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive. It does not adequately recognise that patients are its raison d’être. Those are telling points, which led the noble Baroness to recommend the appointment of a patient safety commissioner, an independent and proactive public leader with a statutory responsibility to champion the value of listening to patients and promoting users’ perspectives in seeking improvements to patient safety. That is welcome and it will be essential that the person who is appointed is robust, fearless and commands wide respect. Their independence needs to be assured. I hope also that the appointment will be subject to Select Committee scrutiny and I should be glad if the Minister can comment on that.
Picking up on a point that the noble Baroness made, I should also be grateful if I could have a little more explanation about what is meant by relevant bodies, as defined in the schedule. It is clearly important that bodies with responsibilities in relation to patient safety are expected to respond to a report or recommendation made by the commissioner. Can the Minister give a broad indication of the relevant bodies? Also, in relation to the private health sector, my reading is that this is covered by the Bill and that the schedule provides for that. Can the Minister respond?
Overall, however, I commend the Minister on the Government’s response to this significant recommendation by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege.