§ Mr. MonroI beg to move Amendment No. 27, in page 27, line 39, leave out from 'than' to 'but' in line 41 and insert:
'twelve months from the day on which the matters alleged in the complaint first came to the notice of the person aggrieved'.I anticipate that this Amendment will be welcome to the Opposition. They argued in Committee that the six months period we had orginally in the Bill was too short if we allowed for "injury time", if that is what I may call it, when complaints are with the area health board.However, as I promised the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. John Smith), as reported at cols. 382 and 404 of the Official Report First Scottish Standing Committee on 22nd June, I have looked carefully at this matter. After consultation with my right hon. Friend we decided that it would be possible to increase the period to 12 months from the day when the matters alleged in the complaint first came to the notice of the person aggrieved. This not only clarifies the Clause but gives the Opposition the point they wanted.
§ Mr. John SmithI thank the Under-secretary for the Amendment. It is a distinct improvement on the Bill. It 2014 became clear in Committee that if there were to be a time limit of six months, there would be an obvious danger that the investigation of the body subject to examination might not be completed in the six months' period.
May I offer a sugestion to the Under-secretary that the material time is the time taken to complete investigations and that he should ask how long it would take to go through the process of investigating, since the person complaining has to go to the investigating body before going to the commissioner.
A working party has been considering the complaints procedure in the Health Service. The Under-Secretary might look at that and, if it turns out that the average period of investigation is a little longer than 12 months, he might consider extending the period.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Mr. MonroI beg to move Amendment No. 29, in page 28, line 10, leave out 'an aggrieved person' and insert 'a person aggrieved'.
This is to correct a printing error.
§ Amendment agreed to.