National Carers Strategy
Debate between Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie and Baroness Merron(2 days, 16 hours ago)
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Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chief executive of Cerebral Palsy Scotland. Disabled adults of working age tell me that one of the reasons they have to fall back on family and unpaid carers is the dire shortage of availability of good PAs to help them work and live. Can the Minister confirm that the national carers strategy will look at access to PAs for working-age adults?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I do have to say to the noble Baroness that I have not committed to a national carers strategy. However, in our joined-up approach, we will certainly be looking at what is needed. That will be very much part of our considerations on the workforce strategy, which Minister Karin Smyth will be leading on. It is crucial to the delivery of services.
Palliative and End-of-life Care: Funding
Debate between Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie and Baroness Merron(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Merron (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right, and I certainly agree with the points she has made. Those who care for their loved ones are absolutely crucial to ensuring that the right care is provided in the right place and the right way for that person. Everybody is individual, and we want a society where everybody receives the right kind of care at the end of their life. That should be a time of dignity, and we want to provide that.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, people with neurological conditions face many barriers to accessing palliative care, even though it could do them a huge amount of good. The answers to this are better identification of individual needs and better collaboration between palliative and neurological services. Can the Minister assure me that she will look at this? There is a great inequity in access to palliative care. I declare my interest as a chair of the Scottish Government’s neurological advisory committee.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
The noble Baroness is quite right to raise this, and I can give her that assurance. She raises the point about identification of people with specific needs. I am interested to see that there are some very good examples of local good practice—for example, in Dorset, where they have proactively gone out to identify who needs palliative and end-of-life care. By so doing, they have raised the percentage of the local population who should be receiving it. That is a model we will want to look at. With regard to those who have particular needs, as the noble Baroness describes, I think that model will be helpful too.