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Health Social Care

Health and Social Care Bill

Key Benefits
The Bill would enhance professional regulation and create a new integrated regulator, the Care Quality Commission, for health and adult social care, with focus on providing assurance about the safety and quality of care for patients and service users. To assure the safety and quality of care and apply a consistent approach to regulation by requiring providers of health services and adult social care to register with a new regulator, the Care Quality Commission; To equip the new regulator with tougher powers, backed by fines, to inspect, investigate and intervene where hospitals are failing to meet hygiene standards; To implement, following the inquiry into the case of Harold Shipman, the manifesto commitment to strengthen clinical governance; and to reform the system of professional regulation to ensure it earns and sustains the confidence of patients, professionals and Parliament; To implement the 2006 pre-Budget Report commitment to extend financial support to mothers-to-be from the 29th week of pregnancy; The Bill provides a comprehensive set of public health measures to help prevent or control the spread of serious diseases caused by infection or contamination. To establish a new, integrated health and adult social care regulator, the Care Quality Commission, from existing regulators (the Healthcare Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and the Mental Health Act Commission); to define the functions of the new regulator in the areas of safety and quality assurance, information and performance assessment and safeguarding the rights of detained mental health patients; and to update the system of registration that applies to providers of health and adult social care services and extend this to include NHS providers. Further details will be set out shortly in our response to the consultation on 'The future regulation of health and adult social care in England'; To introduce legislation to ensure all healthcare professional regulatory bodies use the civil, rather than criminal, standard of proof; to create an independent adjudicator to undertake independent and objective formal adjudication for the professional regulatory bodies; and to ensure that all healthcare organisations employing or contracting with doctors appoint a 'responsible officer' with personal responsibility to work with the GMC to identify and handle cases of poor professional performance by doctors, including overseeing arrangements for revalidation of doctors.
Health Social Care
Territorial Extent
United Kingdom

The territorial extent of the measures in the Bill would differ for each part of the Bill. The Government will work closely with the Devolved Administrations on the responsibilities they have in this area.

Additional Information

The Bill will update the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984: to strengthen the response to infectious disease and to provide a response to contamination; to create broader and more flexible provisions with the aim of providing a more effective and proportionate response to infectious disease; and to modernise the existing legislation by taking into account modern scientific understanding, human rights legislation and worldwide developments such as the World Health Organisation's International Health Regulations 2005.

Related Documents

Existing legislation in this area

Medical Act 1983
Health Act 1999
Care Standards Act 2000
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003
Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984
NHS Act 2006