Adult Social Care

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Lord speaks with great wisdom and he is absolutely right to highlight Salford, as he always does, because it is the root of the integrated care service being put in place in Greater Manchester with unique devolution powers, and we want to see that model rolled out across the country. Of course, the point of that is to ensure a better interface between the National Health Service and social care, so that one of the problems that bedevils us at the moment—delayed transfers of care—does not get in the way of proper care.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, it is good to be back, but very depressing to find that some of the things that were happening when I left are very much the same as I return—in particular, in respect of the Green Paper. The world may be changing radically in other ways, but I find that we have yet another Green Paper to add to the pile of other reports on adult social care.

I briefly pay tribute to the health service, particularly in Norfolk, which has saved my life and put me partly back on my feet. When I came out of the health service and had to use social care, however, I found myself spending thousands of pounds of my savings on carers. Many others, like me, find themselves uncertain about what the future will bring when they come to the end of their savings because we do not have the answer in the Green Paper. I am asking the Government not only to look very carefully at the issue of people who need carers, but to tell us the timeframe so that people are not left in a state of uncertainty about what the future will bring.

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I am very pleased to welcome the noble Baroness back to the House, and am glad to see that she is on the mend. She highlights a critical point about certainty, which she makes movingly from a personal insight. It does not matter what age someone is; there is a great deal of uncertainty about what the system will look like when they retire—whether that is in five or 50 years. Providing that security and certainty is one of the principles underpinning the reform. It will be in the Green Paper. I know that successive Governments have had Green Papers, but we need to seize the chance of a long-term plan for the NHS and a Green Paper coming together to try to make it work.