NHS Continuing Healthcare

Debate between Baroness Merron and Lord Crisp

Monday 2nd September 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)]

NHS continuing healthcare fulfils a unique function within the health and social care system, providing support for people with the highest levels of need by fully funding their health and social care. To monitor its effectiveness, the department works closely with NHS England, the wider sector, such as the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, and voluntary organisations which represent people with lived experience. This includes assurance work and projects to promote consistency in implementing this care.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very positive response. As she says, NHS continuing healthcare is vital. However, there are problems. Some of those are about finance, but I want to ask her specifically about the criteria for eligibility both nationally and locally, which are obscure and difficult. First, at the national level, can the Minister define precisely the level of nursing or other health services that a local authority can legally provide and which therefore do not have to be provided by the NHS? Secondly, almost 85% of applications other than fast track are refused, yet people have been encouraged to apply by health and care workers locally. Does the Minister agree that more needs to be done to ensure there is a clear understanding of who may or may not be eligible, rather than wasting so much of patients’, relatives’ and professionals’ time on unsuccessful applications?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I do understand the concerns raised by the noble Lord and agree that we need to take a close look at all these areas. I have already raised that with officials and with Minister Kinnock, who is the responsible Minister in this area. On the second question, there is indeed a relatively low conversion rate, and I understand that the decision was originally made to ensure that everyone who might be eligible is actually assessed. The assessment acts as a gateway to other NHS-funded care but, having looked at it, this could perhaps be made somewhat clearer. On the first question, the noble Lord will understand that I cannot give a definitive answer, and he will be aware that legislation does not limit the number of hours or the cost of nursing care that a local authority may provide. However, the Care Act 2014 sets out that local authorities can provide nursing care only in very limited circumstances—for example, where it is a minor part of overall care, such as basic wound care.

Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Merron and Lord Crisp

Committee stage
Friday 4th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I imagine that your Lordships’ House and Parliament generally very often have a choice in terms of the rightful tensions between, on one level, supporting freedom of action and speech and, on the other, balancing that against harms to individuals and society as a whole from smoking. I know that I am on the latter side of the argument in this case.

It is also worth noting that this is not about just the risk that comes from smoking—risk comes from many sources—but rather the scale of the risk and the impact that it has across the whole of the health system. Despite everything else that has been said about public health, it is worth remembering that this is the biggest risk and that half of the difference in life expectancy between people in poorer neighbourhoods and those in richer ones is due to smoking. That scale is the issue that we are talking about.

I was pleased to add my name to the four polluter pays amendments led by the noble Lord, Lord Young. On the notion that a payment or levy based on income—not a tax—will be used for reducing smoking, providing smoking cessation clinics and improving public health, I believe that this is a different arrangement from that consulted on by the Government in 2015.

I will make several other quick points that very much fit in with what has been said. First, this is about what the Government need to do if they are going to level up under the ambitious plans that were set out only yesterday for delivering improvements in life expectancy and the differences in life expectancy around the country—that is really important, and something will need to be done about smoking if those plans are going to be achieved.

Secondly, this is also about poverty: the average smoker spends £2,000 a year on smoking, and some new research suggests that this leads something like half a million households around the country into poverty. I have not studied that, so I only say “suggests”, but it seems to me to be an important point.

Thirdly, perhaps at one level, this started off for people as a lifestyle choice, but it is actually an addiction. I speak as a former smoker who made an enormous effort to give up. The average number of attempts before you give up is around 30, but I think that I probably exceeded that, and I can tell you the day on which I finally succeeded. It is an addiction, and this whole business runs on addiction—not on the occasional cigarette or the cigar at Christmas—and we should never forget that.

Fourthly, I ask whether the polluter paying is right in principle or just pragmatic. In a sense, it does not really matter: it is pragmatic. Over the last five years, NHS smoking cessation treatment services have been cut: about £23 million a year was spent on such campaigns, but now it is less than £2 million. There is not a lot of money around at the moment, obviously, and this seems a very pragmatic solution for finding money to support smoking cessation services—in addition to the fact that I would see it as being right in principle.

Finally, there is real evidence that those smoking cessation services work. Therefore, it would be money well invested in the future health of our nation.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate, and we have heard various views. I thank my noble friend Lord Faulkner for leading on this group of amendments, and I thank noble Lords for putting forward their amendments and views so that we can explore how we respond to the challenge of smoking.

My first point leads on very neatly from the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. Smoking remains the leading preventable cause of premature death. As the noble Lord observed, it is a matter where we should consider the scale of the effect and the fact that this is about addiction. It is not about free choice but is something that we must assist people to overcome. While rates are indeed at record low levels, there are still more than 6 million smokers in England, and the need to reduce this number is particularly important now, as smokers are more at risk of serious illness from Covid.

The economic and health benefits of a smoke-free 2030 would be felt most keenly among the most disadvantaged. However, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Young, at current rates we will miss this target by seven years on average, and by at least double that amount for the poorest groups in our society. So it is vital that we motivate more smokers to quit while reducing the number of children and young people who start to smoke.

Within this group of amendments, noble Lords have suggested a broad raft of anti-smoking measures, including information inserts and warnings printed on rolling papers, a consultation on raising the age of sale to 21 and a “polluter pays” approach which argues that tobacco companies should pay for smoker treatment programmes. All these measures can be underpinned by broad cross-party support and public support. Certainly, the All-Party Group on Smoking and Health is very supportive of this group of amendments.

The pandemic has posed new challenges to us, and there is a new group of people who started smoking but who otherwise would not have done so. We have been promised a new tobacco control plan, and I hope that the Minister tells your Lordships’ House when we can expect it. The labelling and information interventions contained within this group of amendments have a strong evidence base from other countries, as well as from research in the UK. I hope that the Minister will be amenable to them.

Picking up on a few of the points raised within this group, it is very shocking to note that more than 200,000 11 to 17 year-olds who have never smoked previously have tried vaping this year. It is a very strange situation that e-cigarettes and similar products can be given free to somebody under 18 but they cannot be sold to them. We do not want to see a situation where young people are brought to smoking by smoking substitutes.

In reference to the amendment that proposes a United States-style “polluter pays” model to fund all these interventions, including the restoration of lost smoking-cessation services, the noble Lord, Lord Young, described practical ways in which this could come about. Certainly, the Minister in the other place did not close the door to this idea in Committee. I hope that we will hear from the Minister some agreement towards this.

Amendment 270 promotes a consultation on raising the age of sale, because we know that the older a person gets, the less likely they are to start smoking. If this is to happen, it requires proper consultation with relevant stakeholders, not least young people themselves, including those who are underage. It must be rigorous in checking what will work. Attitudes to the incidence of smoking have changed over the years, but the direction now is firmly one way, and that is to prevent ill health and premature death. This group of amendments contains proposals to keep us moving in this direction, to assist those who smoke and to prevent those who seek to smoke, particularly those at the younger end of the scale. I hope that this group of amendments will find favour with the Minister.