My Lords, I join the universal commendations for the Government for accepting the recommendation to introduce a patient safety commissioner. It demonstrates that campaigning can work for everybody, from school pupils to Premiership footballers to Members of the House of Lords—in this case supported by patients, many of them suffering from continuing illness and disability.
I want briefly to pick up three points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. The first is the importance of the commissioner being a person of standing. As the noble Baroness’s report clearly explains, there is a strong gender aspect to the fact that far too many patients have not been listened to, have been ignored and have been mistreated by the system. It is really important that the patient safety commissioner is well equipped to understand that and make themself accessible to all patients. As the noble Baroness said, it is clear that the patient safety commissioner should be a person of standing and the kind of person who should shape the role that they will ultimately fulfil.
That brings me to my second point, which the noble Baroness and many others have stressed: the urgency of this appointment. As has already been pointed out, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner has been appointed before we have even passed the Domestic Abuse Bill. That is very much a model. I have a direct question for the Minister. It should not be beyond the capacity of the department to advertise this role within, say, one month. If he does not think that this timetable is reasonable, can he suggest what he thinks a reasonable timetable is? The noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, also asked this. I also echo the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, that it is crucial that this appointment has Select Committee scrutiny.
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Thirdly, I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, that naming and shaming is not the way forward. The commissioner needs to be able to get urgent action; that certainly has not worked very well with the enforcement of minimum wage legislation. The commissioner needs to be able to swing into action.
Finally, I want to pick up a point made by the Minister in his introduction. He made a comparison to the Children’s Commissioner, saying that that commissioner is also appointed by the Secretary of State and funded by the department. There is a fundamental difference between the Children’s Commissioner and a patient safety commissioner. The Children’s Commissioner has a very broad remit, of course, and has done excellent work on everything from immigration law to poverty and inequality—things that the department itself might well want to see action on, as part of bringing its entire weight to assisting children suffering so many disadvantages to get an education. But that is not quite parallel to the patient safety commissioner operating in the health department and within the NHS framework. That is where such a comparison does not quite work.