NHS and Adult Social Care

Wednesday 5th April 2017 Lords Chamber

Question

15:06

Asked by

[Lord Patel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the long-term sustainability of the National Health Service and adult social care.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord O'Shaughnessy) (Con)]

My Lords, the NHS and adult social care systems face unprecedented challenges due to an ageing, growing population and rising expectations. Making these systems sustainable for the long term depends on changing the way that services are delivered, with much greater emphasis on integration and keeping people well and independent for longer, as set out in the NHS Five Year Forward View and delivery plan.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

I was hoping that the Minister might thank us for the brilliant and well-written report published today. It is, following a great deal of difficulty, a consensus report from all sides of this House, including the Spiritual Benches, and I hope that it will be met with political consensus when the politicians have had time to digest it. It has identified some key threats to the long-term sustainability of health and social care, and I shall allude to just one of them: if we do not get a long-term settlement for social care funding, healthcare will continue to suffer. The report makes some good suggestions, including how individuals who can afford it can make a contribution to funding the long-term sustainability of social care. I hope that the Minister will take that on board when he devises the Green Paper on social care.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank the noble Lord for that. I did not want to get ahead of myself but I thank him and all members of the committee for their work in putting together this document. I appreciate that it is an incredibly thorough and important piece of work, and I am also grateful to have received an embargoed copy of it yesterday. I will of course look carefully at all the recommendations and respond properly in due course. I am sure that we will also have an opportunity for a longer debate.

The noble Lord specifically asked about social care, and I completely agree with the priority attached to it in the report. He will know that the Government have committed more money in the short term to support social care, with £2 billion more having been announced at the Budget. But I know that his emphasis and the emphasis of his committee was on long-term reform. He is quite right to point out that the Green Paper is a very important opportunity to take a broad perspective and to put the system on a sustainable long-term footing.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I too commend the noble Lord and his committee for a thorough report, which I endorse and on which I hope we can have a full debate in due course. On the future of long-term care, the noble Lord will know that before the 2010 election Andy Burnham, as Secretary of State for Health, made some very striking proposals for its funding. I wonder whether the Minister regrets that David Cameron and other Conservative leaders at the time condemned this as a “death tax” and put back the search for consensus on the funding of social care for many, many years.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The so-called “death tax”, to use the noble Lord’s words—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

Those were the words just repeated by the noble Lord. The so-called “death tax” was a percentage levy on all estates, regardless of the use of social care systems. The proposals that the coalition Government came forward with—the Dilnot proposals—were about capping amounts and therefore were much more responsive to the amounts being spent. The Chancellor has recently recommitted us to not looking at that proposal but we will, through the Green Paper, seek to put the social care system on a sustainable basis and, of course, seek consensus wherever we can.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise the logic of the committee’s criticism of the cuts to public health funding? Will he go back and commit himself to promoting the prevention agenda and good health agenda, not just in his own department but across government, because so many other departments have an effect on the health of the nation?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is quite right about the importance of public health. It is worth pointing out that it is not just an issue of money. This country was the first in Europe to act on cigarette packaging, to introduce a soft drinks industry levy and to develop a childhood obesity plan. As we have talked about previously, if you look at the risky behaviours displayed by young people, you will see good evidence that this approach is working.

[Baroness Redfern (Con)]

My Lords, as the population ages and the financial pressures on the health and care system increase, evidence tells us of the need to be better at providing proactive, preventive care to ensure that people can live independent, fulfilling lives for longer. Will the Minister do all he can in expressing these concerns and look at ways to address, as a priority, the uptake of innovation and technology, together with data sharing across the NHS, to emphasise the need to develop a credible strategy?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for that and for her contribution to the work of the committee. She speaks with great experience and authority from her role in running a local authority. She is quite right that technology offers huge opportunities. The key is to make sure that the NHS and social care systems see technology as an opportunity to improve productivity rather than as providing an additional cost. That is why we are taking a variety of actions through the life sciences industrial strategy, the accelerated access review and other routes to make sure that technology is improving outcomes.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords, the current social care narrative is dominated by the lack of residential homes and home care services for older people. Given that working-age disabled adults make up one-third of those reliant on social care, is it not time that we had a more comprehensive government social care strategy that reflects the diverse needs of all service users, and to work with disabled people to produce it?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness makes an incredibly important point. Despite the ageing population, the fastest-growing part of the adult social care budget is, I think, for adults with learning difficulties. She is quite right that there needs to be a comprehensive approach. That is why additional funding is going in to support not just older people but working-age adults too.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of the board of Great Ormond Street Hospital. I was also a member of the Select Committee. I want to pick up on what the Minister said just now about public health—which, if I may say so, I thought was rather complacent. The public health budget has been cut year after year over the past decade. Will he give the House an assurance that this budget will not only be protected but enhanced? Unless that is done, the terrible crisis we have in obesity will not be prevented, and many other areas of public health such as smoking, drugs and alcohol will not be addressed properly.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The budget for all health services has been set out now for the spending review period until 2021. I completely agree with the noble Baroness about the importance of these kinds of activities. We are, of course, moving to a system where local authorities are able to retain their business rates. They have primary responsibility for the delivery of much of the public health services and we are trying to put them on a long-term financial basis so that they will be able to continue with the kind of work she has highlighted.