I’m writing this in the half hour break we’ve been given for lunch on the 5th day of committee on the Health and Social Care Bill. We’ve been discussing the role of GP Clinical Commissioning groups and then Public Health. There is broad unaniminity around the House about the objectives and very little disagreement about the…
The Health and Social Care Bill committee stages started last week http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/111025-0002.htm and will continue this afternoon. We haven’t got past clause 1 yet. It was probably the most frustrating debate I’ve ever attended. It is all about whether the Secretary of State for Health should ‘provide’, or ‘promote’ and or ‘secure’ a comprehensive health…
Following on Lord Tyler’s exchanges with Zoe Williams in the Guardian, I have to confess to being increasingly alienated by mass e-mails and letters about the Health and Social Care Bill. We have always had mass mailings from union members and religious organisations on certain issues but I first noticed I was receiving large numbers…
Like most peers I try and get out and about to keep in touch with what’s happening in my old field, in my case in mental health services, by speaking about parliament and in return listening to staff concerns. It doesn’t give the full picture. For one thing these visits don’t include patients and their…
The Second Reading debate on the Health and Social Care Bill begins on Tuesday. I say ‘begins’ because so many peers will be speaking that the debate is now being spread over two days, with the House sitting early on both days. No less than 100 peers are signed up to speak. Anyone wishing to watch…
