Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Tonge and Baroness Hollins

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollins]

My Lords, I would like to add to what my noble friend Lady Murphy has said by commenting on a couple of amendments in this group which concern the need for the tariff to be able to reflect and adapt to the requirements of people with complex needs. I am thinking particularly about people with learning disabilities who may need additional time to be devoted to them because of their conceptual or communication difficulties, or other disabled people who may require reasonable adjustments to be made in order for them to use a service. I think also of people with mental health problems using hospital services such as maternity services. The provision of maternity care is hugely complicated by the presence of people with an enduring mental illness. The need for the tariff accurately to reflect and encompass these needs poses quite a challenge.

[Baroness Tonge]

My Lords, I rise to ask a question rather than to make comments. I am rather confused about how tariffs work. I am thinking particularly of sexual and reproductive health services. Therefore, I support Amendment 292A tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Gould.

Sexual and reproductive health services are currently provided by general practitioners and clinics directly commissioned by primary care trusts. They can be family planning clinics, youth counselling clinics or genitourinary medicine clinics. Under the new system, GPs will presumably carry on providing sexual and reproductive health services and abortion counselling services, although I am unclear exactly how they will be remunerated in the future. Those GP services are very variable. Some GPs provide a superb service while others provide a very bad one. Some do not provide certain services at all so it is common for patients to go to clinics in their area which have been provided by the primary care trust.

Under the new health service, local authorities will commission and provide sexual and reproductive health services and abortion counselling services as well as HIV prevention services, but not the treatment, although I do not want to go into that now. They will be responsible for those sexual and reproductive health services. However, I am puzzled by the following matter. Currently, if a patient does not like their GP or finds that the GP does not provide the service they want, they can go to a local clinic. However, because of political or religious arguments within a local authority it may have made those services a very low priority, or perhaps does not provide them at all. It seems to me that there is nothing to compel local authorities to provide certain public health services. If a patient cannot get the relevant services from a GP or does not like them, and cannot go a local clinic because one is not available, can they go to a clinic in another local authority where they are not resident? This could be a problem for many patients all over the country, particularly young people who tend to go to different areas for their services where perhaps they are not known or the doctor does not know them. So I am very concerned.

Could the Minister please say how these services will be affected if no national tariff is set on public health services? How do we know that local authorities will not only provide services for sexual and reproductive health but accept people from other local authorities for treatment? It is a very important question for many people in this country.