To ask Her Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to Patients not Numbers, People not Statistics, published by the Patients Association; what response they have made or will be making; and whether they will take any action. [HL6164]

We are extremely concerned about any instance of poor or neglectful care of patients, however small in number. The Chief Nursing Officer, Chris Beasley, among others, has said that where nurses are guilty of this they should not remain in the profession. We have a number of initiatives in place to improve and sustain high quality care of patients in hospital, including the essence of care benchmarking system which covers all aspects of fundamental care; the productive ward series which enables nurses to spend more time in direct patient care, and the confidence in caring programme, which helps front-line nurses improve their interaction with patients.

However, we realise that we need to be sure innovative programmes are having the desired effect and so we are presently developing a quality framework for nursing so that performance can be monitored, and failures to reach the required standard caught at the earliest opportunity.