NHS: Dementia Commission Report

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Markham

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Again, everything that can add to our knowledge has to be a good thing.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, with an ageing population it is inevitable that this illness is going to increase in prevalence across the population. Do the Government have any intention of building into their strategy for caring for dementia the support, perhaps in the workplace, that might be needed, particularly for older women, who tend to be predominantly carers, maybe via insurance in the workplace for respite and for carer’s leave, in order to ensure that this is not such a strain on both the families and the public purse?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

There is recognition in all these things that the workplace has a role here. I have looked at treatments and outcomes in the G7 countries, and Japan is often a good example of having care in the workplace, as my noble friend is aware. As so often, it is about making people realise that this is everyone’s problem to deal with. I will do more work to understand what we are doing to arm employers for that, and I will come back to my noble friend.

NHS: Fracture Liaison Services

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Markham

Monday 5th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I believe that the latest number is 57%, but the general point stands that that leaves 43% which are making other types of provision. The work we are doing right now is trying to understand the success of those versus what we see as prudent with that 57%. That is the case we are making and the case that Minister Caulfield was referring to as well. I believe personally that it is a strong case, so it is something that, as I say, we are looking to work further on.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for adding to the pressure on my noble friend, but half of all over-50s women will suffer fractures due to osteoporosis, and this affects 50,000 working-age women each year, yet too often this disease is just stereotyped as affecting old women. The menopause increases fracture risks for women in their 50s, when many are in the prime of their life. Might such mistaken stereotyping about old women explain the near total absence of osteoporosis from the Government’s laudable women’s health strategy? Will we perhaps see women’s health hubs referring women to fracture liaison services, with further progress in the forthcoming Budget?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Again, the use of hubs and their importance for getting people back to work is recognised. That is why in 2023, in the major conditions strategy, we announced the £400 million workforce programme to get 100,000 people with employee support back into work. It is absolutely recognised that what we can do with fracture liaison clinics is a major help. We are also looking at digital therapeutics—the app is close to my heart—that can help with MSK as well. There are a range of measures.

Care of Critically Ill Children

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Markham

Monday 29th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Clearly, we would all agree that the families need to be the priority in these terrible cases. What we have tried to do—and I have also done my own research into this—is make available what I call independent funding requests for when there is a new course of treatment which might not be allowed generally by NICE to give opportunities in those instances as well. I will come back to the noble Lord on things such as travel support and other expenses.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest in and my work with the Teenage Cancer Trust. In connection with the task force, will my noble friend let the House know what input charities that specialise in this kind of work with children and teenagers who, sadly, are in this position and their families will have into the task force? Will he join with me in commending the tremendous work done by this charity and the other charities which specialise in helping children and families going through this traumatic time?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Yes, I am very happy to add my thanks for everything they do in this. It is clear in these circumstances that the more support we can give families, the better. I will speak to Minister Caulfield to make sure that input is properly there because my noble friend is correct that it should be there.

Children in Care: CAMHS Waiting Times

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Markham

Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I agree. Arguably, if you are being home schooled, you probably need a lot of help. As the noble Lord will be aware, a lot of the services are related to social prescribing, where often people with mental disorders can be helped by involving them more in community activities. Clearly, those who are home schooled are much more likely to be isolated.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on his previous answer about triaging so that those in care can get urgent mental health support. Does he have any targets in mind as to the proportion of children in care with mental health needs who could be seen within, let us say, six months rather than the current waiting time of up to two years?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. The NHS has recently set out a national framework for the practical pathways that it expects ICBs to follow in terms of getting diagnoses. To be very open with my noble friend, given demand, setting targets in this space is probably not the wisest thing to do, but we understand that we need to get on top of this.

Adult Social Care

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Markham

Thursday 24th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Believe me, I am no fan of complexity. At the same time, I want to make sure, as I am sure we all do, that the funding goes to the places of most need and is really being spent on the areas that it is being spent on. Having said that, I will take away those comments at face value and will look into the complexity because, clearly, that is in no one’s interest.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, the crisis in social care has been worsening since I was advising the Dilnot commission in 2011. What plans do the Government have to improve the situation rather than watch it deteriorate? Age UK estimates that there are about 2 million elderly people needing care who are not receiving it, so 200,000 care packages are hardly going to make enough difference.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. As the population grows older, we must look at how to cater for these areas. We have been having real-term increases year after year of 2.5%, and 22% by 2024-25 is a substantial increase by any measure. At the same time, satisfaction levels are high. Do we need to do more? Clearly, we need to keep up in this space.

Social Care Sector: Staff Shortages

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Markham

Monday 21st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Viscount mentioned funding. Clearly, it was a difficult choice, but our priority was to make sure that the funding went into the supply of places over the next two years, because of the impact that has across the system. Noble Lords will have heard me mention many times how that affects the whole flow, which backs up into ambulance wait times and everything else. That is why I am delighted to say that we have secured £2.8 billion of extra funding in 2023-24 and £4.7 billion in 2024-25. That will obviously flow through the whole system, including into staff wages and recruitment.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the announcement of the health and social care visa, but the Government have no separate figures for the number of workers who have come here under the new health and care special visa rules, separately for health staff and social care staff. So can my noble friend tell the House what are the median and top quartile pay rates for social care staff? I am happy for him to write to me if he does not have those figures. Do the new visa’s minimum salary requirements mean there is little hope of immigration filling the 165,000 or more vacancies, leaving 2.6 million older people without the care they need, as estimated by Age UK?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I will need to write on the detail of the median and upper quartiles, as mentioned. What I can say right now, though, is that the national living wage increase will put them over the current visa levels required, which I think will be a big boost, allowing us to increase our recruitment from overseas. We have already seen month-on-month increases and the national living wage increase will help grow that further.

GPs: Anti-depressants and Alcohol

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Markham

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I agree that we have to make sure that GPs are equipped with the full range of tools for the job and the full range of knowledge. We are probably all aware of some instances of GPs who are very aware and progressive in this space, and others where they do not have that same level of information. We are putting a £2.3 billion increase in 2023-24 into the mental health space to treat an extra 2 million people. We need to make sure that we have a range of help that we can put in place for these people.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I echo the words of my noble friend that GPs are absolutely critical to sorting out these issues, and the Dame Carol Black review on overprescribing presumably will look into that too. Does he agree that one of the problems that urgently needs to be sorted is the pension issues that are driving our GPs to retire early? Might we look forward to some early resolution of that problem?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I am very aware of the issue. Funnily enough, just today I had a meeting on this with the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. It is something on which we are working closely with Treasury and other officials.