Sudan

Debate between Baroness Masham of Ilton and Baroness Northover

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)]

My Lords, have other aid organisations also been banned? It is most extraordinary that the Red Cross has been banned as it is a non-religious, non-political organisation.

[Baroness Northover]

We are hoping that the ICRC will be able to deliver the humanitarian relief that it was delivering before. Negotiations are at a delicate stage. A number of other international organisations are working with enormous difficulty in the area, some with greater reach than others. Some are still there, but a number have had to pull back.

Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

Debate between Baroness Masham of Ilton and Baroness Northover

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Cambodia, for example, which was highlighted in the programme, has seen an 80% decline in malaria deaths, a 45% fall in TB and a 50% decline in HIV cases. I pay tribute to what my noble friend has done to highlight the challenge of HIV/AIDS and to his fight for the global fund, which has been transformative in this area.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is in the interests of the world to prevent these conditions? I congratulate the UK on what it has done, but will the noble Baroness encourage other countries to do more?

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness is right in terms of the impact. Yesterday, President Obama pledged $5 billion to the global fund. The US has said that it does not wish to contribute more than one-third to the fund. In other words, it wants to bring in other partners. Other countries, including Canada and the Nordic countries, have put in money and are coming forward in an encouraging fashion.

International Development: Diseases of Poverty

Debate between Baroness Masham of Ilton and Baroness Northover

Wednesday 24th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

Indeed, the United Kingdom is extremely strong in this field. The Wellcome Trust is a major player in this regard and we have the strengths of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, so we contribute significantly in this area. I pay tribute to what the MRC does.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the organisation here in London called Find and Treat? It has a mobile X-ray unit and goes out to homeless people in hostels and other places to X-ray them for TB. Its X-ray unit is now on its last legs and it desperately needs a new one. Could she ensure that money is available here because TB is just as bad here as it is in third-world countries?

[Baroness Northover]

I remember colleagues being tested in one of those centres locally. I will take this back to the Department of Health and get an answer for the noble Baroness. It is obviously important to address TB here, where it is an increasing problem, as well as in developing countries.

Healthcare: Support Workers

Debate between Baroness Masham of Ilton and Baroness Northover

Monday 28th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I can assure my noble friend that all options will be considered when we receive the Mid Staffs report.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that, without registration of these care workers, they can go anywhere and work anywhere, when they are dangerous and not suitable for work because they cannot be tracked?

[Baroness Northover]

As the noble Baroness knows, employers have a responsibility to make sure that those whom they employ are suitable and do not have the kind of record that she has indicated. We also know that regulation per se does not necessarily mean that good care is given; therefore, a proportionate and intelligent response is needed if we are to ensure that the care given is of the consistency, safety and quality that we all wish to see.

Health and Social Care Bill: HIV/AIDS Programmes

Debate between Baroness Masham of Ilton and Baroness Northover

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The local authorities will commission the prevention and testing services. They have a public health outcomes framework that they need to address to drive up the situation across the board in public health. There are incentives within that for them to try to improve the health of their populations. Local authorities are best placed to understand the public health pressures, which are not just in this area, on their local populations.

On prevention and treatment, the emphasis in recent years—under the previous Government, as under ours—has been on the high-risk groups, particularly gay men and people from the sub-Saharan region. Those are the groups at greatest risk. However, a sexual health policy document is being worked on at the moment. If it is felt that it is important to feed into it that there is a need for nationwide emphasis on this matter, now is the time to emphasise it.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, will the Minister assure the House that there will not be fragmentation in regard to this very complicated condition? Will there be NICE guidelines? The drugs for HIV are very complex and there is a fear that there might be resistance.

[Baroness Northover]

As with every other area, this will kept under close review to make sure that things are suitably joined up and that we have high-quality prevention and treatment. As for NICE guidelines, the British HIV Association produced clinical guidelines for HIV treatment in 1999. They were taken forward and are widely accepted by clinicians and commissioners. The association is currently revising its guidelines and we will see what it suggests.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Masham of Ilton and Baroness Northover

Monday 19th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for these amendments, which raise important issues about the ways in which we assure the quality and safety of our health and social care workforce. It is another bite of a very important cherry, as the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, put it, which is a wonderfully graphic image. We had a full discussion of this issue earlier. Perhaps I may emphasise again that the Government are committed to embedding quality of care and patient safety at the heart of health and social care provision. These are the key drivers of our policy on workforce assurance.

I fully agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, that we need to drive up quality, which has run through a lot of our debates today. In considering how we achieve this, we need to ensure that any system is proportionate and effective and properly balances the need for local responsibility for providing high-quality, safe services, and the need for consistent and rigorous national standards. I assure noble Lords that we are not ruling out compulsory statutory regulation for any groups of workers. Compulsory statutory regulation will be considered where there is a clear body of evidence that the risks presented by specific groups cannot be mitigated by assured voluntary registration alongside other existing systems of assurance of standards, such as supervision of workers by qualified professionals, enforcement of standards by employers, registration with the Care Quality Commission, and the vetting and barring system.

However, compulsory statutory regulation, as we discussed earlier although we did not all agree, is not a panacea. It is no substitute for good leadership at every level and proper and visible management of health and social care services. The best protection for the public is, of course, well run services focused on the individual and delivered by qualified staff and appropriately trained and supervised care workers. Employers, commissioners and managers must take responsibility for ensuring this and we need to make sure that local service providers and commissioners are held to account for managing problems effectively and promptly.

The Care Quality Commission sets standards of care for all providers of regulated activities and takes action when they are not met. These standards include a requirement that providers use suitable numbers of appropriately trained and qualified workers. In the rare cases where health and social care workers present a risk of harm to service users, the vetting and barring system can be used to ban individuals from working with vulnerable adults and children. In this context, our view is that the standards of unregulated groups of health and social care workers can generally be assured without imposing compulsory statutory regulation. However, we recognise that we need to ensure that commissioners, employers, supervisors and individual users of services have the knowledge needed appropriately to employ, delegate to and supervise health and social care workers. The Government believe, as noble Lords have clearly picked up, that assured voluntary registration enables this to be achieved.

The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, seeks to enable regulatory bodies to establish and maintain voluntary registers of unregulated rehabilitation officers for the blind in England. The assured voluntary registration of this important group of workers would enable standards to be set for entry to and practice of the profession. I hope that I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Low, through the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that the amendment is unnecessary as we are confident that the provisions which enable voluntary registers as social care workers in England to be established by the Health and Care Professions Council and accredited by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care are already wide enough to include such officers.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, flagged up key areas with his particular concern about prisoners’ mental health and the mental health of those coming out of the Army. The Health and Care Professions Council will be given the power to set up voluntary registers of workers. Perhaps I may clarify for him the possible confusion over the roles of the various bodies. The council can set up voluntary registers of workers. The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care will not hold registers, but will have the function of accrediting them to ensure that they are robust. However, I am happy to write with further details to clarify the situation for the noble Lord so as to ensure that he is quite happy with the way that things will be organised.

In referring back to our earlier debate, perhaps I may assure my noble friend Lady Barker, who is absolutely right in terms of training, that we place great importance on improving the training of health and social care workers, and especially on further integrating it, something flagged up not only by my noble friend, but also earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, and others.

I hope that I have been able to reassure noble Lords of our commitment to assuring the quality and safety of health and social care workers and the contribution assured voluntary registration can make to the existing systems of assurance of the standards of health and social care workers. I hope, therefore, that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, I thank all the supporters of the amendment. In an ideal situation, what the Minister has said might work, but it is not an ideal world. The important point is that of picking up those people who will not come forward for voluntary registration. What does one do with them? Some agencies might not take people on who have not voluntarily registered, but others take on anyone without even taking up references. There must be safeguards, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has said. We live for the Report stage. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

NHS: Joint Replacement Procedures

Debate between Baroness Masham of Ilton and Baroness Northover

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

That is somewhat wide of the scope of this Question. In relation to the natural break in the health service Bill, it does not seem to be reaching my responsibility any later than I thought it would.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, what is the procedure if a patient is turned down for a joint replacement? Whom does she or he appeal to?

[Baroness Northover]

That is a very interesting question and one that we hope is addressed within the new NHS Bill. It is very difficult, as the noble Baroness knows, to get a response from some of the organisations that currently exist. However, the NHS constitution is still there and patients have rights under that; they have rights to treatment and rights within a certain amount of time. Trying to secure that, as we know, has been difficult. That is one of the challenges that we have to face and we have to ensure that new arrangements build in better ways of handling this.

NHS Reform

Debate between Baroness Masham of Ilton and Baroness Northover

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords—

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I think that we have time for both speakers. It is time to hear from the Labour Party and then the Cross Benches.