Health and Care Bill

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 24th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, the problem to which the noble Lord, Lord Warner, is suggesting a possible solution is the result of long-term underplanning and underfunding of staffing in the NHS, and underfunding also of the capital budgets of hospitals, which sometimes have to choose between mending the roof and buying a piece of equipment that would get patients through the system more effectively and efficiently.

On the comments from my noble friend Lord Rennard on self-management, it is of course not just better care that that produces—it is also very cost effective. I draw noble Lords’ attention to page 3 of the Bill, line 13, where one of the three things to which NHS England has to pay regard about the wider effects of its decisions is

“efficiency and sustainability in relation to the use of resources”.

The resources are much better and more efficiently used if the patient has a decent choice of the equipment and treatment that is most effective for them, and it is often a great deal cheaper.

I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that we need the guidance. We need to see it before Report, and I hope that the Minister will be able to provide that.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, these amendments stress the importance of patient choice in health management, especially of their long-term health conditions, and I welcome and endorse what noble Lords have said on these key issues. The vital importance of patient choice and their right to be able to make informed decisions about their conditions and treatment, and to receive treatment within the 18-week standard waiting time set out in the NHS mandate, was pioneered by Labour and continues to be fully supported by these Benches, as I stressed last week in the group of amendments on the mandate and the NHS constitution.

The noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Lansley, and my noble friend Lord Hunt have spoken about the importance of active self-management, where clinically suitable, for patients with conditions such as diabetes. Access to the latest technologies varies greatly across the country, and the call in Amendment 109 to ensure that the oversight framework for ICSs includes systems for measuring the numbers of diabetes patients accessing diabetes technology would help achieve greater consistency and better use by patients who could benefit from it, particularly in helping to keep them out of hospital or to prevent their conditions deteriorating.

As vice-chair of the Specialised Healthcare Alliance, I know that patients with rare diseases often do not feel sufficiently supported in terms of psychological support, health systems and information, physical and daily living, patient care and support, and sexuality needs. As they are often having to live with their conditions long term, they have considerable potential to be more expert in their conditions than many of the healthcare professionals they come into contact with, many of whom may not be familiar with their disease or condition. With appropriate support, therefore, such patients can manage their less intensive care needs themselves, delivering better health outcomes and reducing demands on the NHS. Efforts to promote the self-care of people with health conditions, as set out in Amendment 226, really have the potential to improve the care of people with rare diseases.

Amendment 72—moved with his usual expertise and clarity by the noble Lord, Lord Warner—reinforces the importance of patient choice and is highly relevant because of the growing and record waiting list that we spoke about last week during the debate on the mandate and constitution. Of course, Labour in the past has used the private sector as part of a comprehensive plan to reduce waiting times, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, pointed out. He will also know that in reality the role played by private providers, and the costs involved in getting the waiting lists down to the 2010 levels before this Government took office, particularly for elective surgery such as hip and knee replacements, were modest compared with the huge investment in the NHS itself and Labour’s genuine commitment to public service solutions, increased investment, the use of targets and improvements in pathways and other efficiencies. As a result, the private sector relied more heavily on getting business from the NHS on NHS terms, not actually treating private fee-paying patients.

In sharp contrast, we have the complete absence of such a comprehensive or coherent plan from the Government to reduce the now-record waiting lists, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, set out in moving his amendment. The Secretary of State has acknowledged that waiting lists could grow to 13 million, with the National Audit Office now predicting that the situation could get even worse than it currently is by March 2025. The Secretary of State promised in November to publish how the Government plan to meet the workforce requirements needed to address staff shortages—to which noble Lords have also referred to during the debate—and the record waiting lists, but we still have not had any sight of this.

So far, all we have had instead are last week’s press reports of the huge sums of money the Government want to hand over to the private sector, including disturbing reports of NHS England’s unease at the Secretary of State’s instructions to hand over £270 million to the private sector with no guarantees on numbers of patients to be treated or, indeed, whether any NHS patients will even get treatment. Our shadow Secretary of State, Wes Streeting, has made it clear that an incoming Labour Government would fully expect again to use the private sector to help bring down waiting times for treatment, but as part of a comprehensive plan to build and the support the NHS so that people do not have to go private because waiting lists are at record levels and they are suffering and in pain. People who cannot afford it always have to wait and remain in pain. That is not social justice and it is just not right.

We support the principle in this amendment. If long waits can be prevented, they should be, although there is a serious question about whether the private sector would in any event actually have the capacity to meet the demand that could be generated by the three-month stipulation for treatment in the amendment. We also agree that the Clause 68 regulations need to be published as soon as possible and I look forward to the Minister telling us more about that. By contrast, a far better solution, as Labour has always advocated, would be to invest in the NHS, help the NHS become more effective and efficient and build capacity so there would be far less need for private sector care.

Finally, the amendment’s requirement to ensure that private sector providers have a duty to provide NHS England with annual information on the services funded by the NHS and on patient choice would be a welcome development, for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, set out. The more that is known about the use of private providers, the better and more informed the discussion about their role will become. I look forward to the Minister’ response.

Health and Care Bill

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Tuesday 18th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, the House will recognise that children have very different needs. They are vulnerable in many ways and in need of the recognition that all the services have to work together. It seems strange that in a Bill on health and social care, children are not identified as a special group. I support these amendments.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, today’s debate has shown the strength and depth of feeling across your Lordships’ House that children and young people should be properly provided for within the scope of the Bill and not just as an afterthought, as many noble Lords have said.

Intervening in the early years of a child’s life is the most effective way of shoring up their good health and well-being as an adult. This group of amendments seeks to do just that, ensuring that our children are not sidelined in a healthcare infrastructure currently designed with adults, and just the NHS, in mind. This group also seeks to strengthen the Bill by including safeguarding, interagency working, service integration and data sharing, especially between government departments and the NHS and social care.

I thank noble Lords for putting forward these amendments, particularly the indefatigable noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for her proposals across Clauses 20 and 21 to ensure the joining up of the roles and work of ICBs and ICPs in these crucial areas. Indeed, what is particularly striking about today’s debate is that the experience and contributions of noble Lords have joined up children’s needs across a whole range of service provision and support in a way that government structures currently fail to do. This is a major issue that needs to be addressed, particularly to address the needs of vulnerable children, as my noble friend Lord Hunt and other noble Lords have stressed.

If the Bill is to stand any chance of improving government health outcomes, it must start with the youngest among us all. Right now, in this, the fifth-biggest economy in the world, child health inequalities are widening, while 25% of children in the average reception class will be overweight. By the time those children are in year 6, it will be 40%. The all-cause mortality rate for under-14s in the UK is among the worst in Europe, and the World Health Organization tells us that 50% of lifetime mental illnesses start by the age of 14. Noble Lords will recall the debate last week about the need for robust mental health services, which include those around potential young suicides, self-harm and eating disorders. As the charity YoungMinds reminds us, after-care and follow-up are crucial although, sadly, ignored in current sustainability plans, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, pointed out.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has expressed particular concern that there is currently no duty in the Bill to include representation from children’s health and care services on integrated care boards. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, underlined in her Amendment 87 the importance of safe staffing levels and of this in driving forward improvements in child healthcare outcomes and ensuring that children and young people can access the care they need, when they need it and from the most appropriate person or team.

Barnardo’s is similarly worried about the absence of a child impact assessment, without which there will be no clear, objective idea of the impact of the changes in this Bill on young people. The right governance and rigorous evaluation, aimed at providing lessons learned for future service design and reform, can surely only be a good thing. We strongly support Amendment 142 on this issue, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, which calls for the impact assessment to be undertaken within two years of the Bill’s implementation. It also emphasises the need for an annual report and debate in Parliament on the impact of changes, scrutinising, in the first year in particular, how the changeover from CCGs to ICBs is working in practice.

Following last week’s debate on the appalling backlog of waiting lists and the NHS’s duties under the mandate and constitution, I remind the Committee that last month’s National Audit Office report showed that more than 288,000 children and young people are waiting for NHS treatment, 86,000 of whom have been waiting for longer than the 18-week target I asked the Government to reaffirm.

Whether it is ensuring proper information sharing between care providers, safe staffing levels or clarifying how the Better Care Fund can specifically be used to better integrate children’s services, these amendments have compassion and common sense behind them. We have an opportunity in this Bill to give our children a healthier future. I hope that the Minister will agree.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry to intervene at this stage but I cannot let the opportunity pass to say, in my view, how important it is that children be particularly referred to and their circumstances be properly taken into account. We have very powerful legislation on the care of children, but the same is not true with health, and it is extremely important that that be kept in view. Apart from anything else, special staff and treatments are required for children, and I therefore strongly support this amendment. I am sorry that I was not able to do so at a more appropriate time, but I arrived a little later than I would have liked.

Health and Care Bill

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 13th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

I support these amendments and in particular the words of my noble friend Lady Northover. I too am a member of Peers for the Planet and, as a biologist, I have been devoted to trying to address climate change ever since I knew anything at all about it. I particularly support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in her determination to mainstream the issue. It is not the responsibility of just Defra but every department of government and every single individual in this country.

From my work on the Science and Technology Committee, I was aware of the health service’s 5% contribution to our emissions, but also of what the NHS has already done and pledged to do under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens. I confess I was a little surprised when I saw these amendments; I thought, given all that, “Why does the noble Lord think more needs to be done?” The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, knows more than I or any of us do about the health service, so if he thinks more needs to be done, I am with him. We absolutely should support these amendments.

I would like to ask the Minister one particular question. The NHS has a very large portfolio of property and the Prime Minister has promised 40 new hospitals in a certain period of time. Leaving aside the fact that some of the buildings promised are not hospitals and are not new, if we are building new buildings, I would like to be assured that all of them will be zero-carbon. That can be done and there is no excuse not to do it.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the four noble Lords who have produced this excellent suite of amendments across the Bill to ensure that ICBs procuring or commissioning goods and services on behalf of the NHS are firmly focused on their responsibility for NHS England’s commitment to reaching net zero by 2040. It has been an excellent and informed debate, and one with much enthusiasm to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman.

We fully support the amendments and have little to add from these Benches following the expert contributions of those proposing the amendments and the other noble Lords who have spoken. I am sorry my noble friend Lady Young, who put her name to the amendments, cannot be here. She was a key member of our team during the recent passage of the Environment Bill, and her expertise and wisdom always guides and reflects our approach. The House is clearly interested in this vital matter, as we saw this week in an important Oral Question on the Prime Minister’s promise for a new, overarching net-zero test for new policies. Assuming the Government fully support the key commitment from NHS England, I hope that, in his response, the Minister will accept the need for the amendments and will not argue that the proposed new clause is unnecessary as NHS England already has a commitment that will percolate down to ICBs.

As we have heard, the power of public sector procurement is a massive issue and there is no bigger part of the public sector than the NHS. The NHS has such an important impact on other environment issues, such as waste, pollution and resource consumption, especially for plastics, paper and water. We should ensure we are on the front foot in using that impact to deliver the net-zero commitment.

The NHS has made a start, but there is much more to do. These amendments would reinforce the importance of action in these areas for the new bodies and processes that the Bill creates. The NHS is a big player and, as noble Lords have stressed, it can play a big role in tackling all of these climate change and environmental challenges. Procurement is a strong lever that the NHS can utilise in key markets, particularly in those areas where it is the sole purchaser. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, was very eloquent on this issue and I look forward to the Minister’s response in the light of his contribution.

Like other speakers today, my noble friend Lady Young wanted to stress that action so far is only the beginning. In the light of the importance of climate change and other environmental challenges, we strongly support such a duty being in place for all the public and private bodies with significant impacts when future legislation comes through Parliament. We did that when inserting a sustainable development duty into the remit of every possible public body from the late 1990s onwards, but this time it has to be not only enacted but managed, delivered, tracked and reported.

As the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, told the House this week, every sector of government needs to do its bit, and we need to hold them to that. These amendments are vital, since every public body will have to take further action this decade if we are to restrain temperature rises to two degrees—far less, 1.5 degrees.

Finally, I too thank Peers for the Planet both for its work and, especially for me, its excellent briefing. As noble Lords have stressed, the NHS has committed to net zero and aims to be the world’s first net-zero national health service. It is responsible for around 5% of the UK’s carbon emissions. That is why the NHS’s role and contribution to net-zero targets should be fully integrated into the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s response and his detailing of how the NHS is to achieve its ambitions. I hope that he will acknowledge that its commitment must be in the Bill. These amendments present a vital opportunity to enshrine in law a commitment that I think most, if not all, would want to see delivered.

[The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, for the amendments and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for her opening remarks. I also thank the noble Baroness for her suggestion yesterday that it might make my life a lot easier if I just accepted amendments. I understand that advice, having just gone through a two-hour debate on the previous group.

A number of noble Lords referred to how these amendments relate to our previous debate on inequalities. I point out that that is sometimes not quite in the way that we would expect. We might think there is a direct connection, but sometimes the green agenda can be seen to be for those who can afford it—as I explained before, for the white, middle-class, patronising people who tell immigrant working-class communities what to do and push up their costs. Anti-car policies push up costs for those in rural areas, and there are higher fuel costs as we replace gas boilers with potentially more expensive heat pumps. We have to be aware of those issues. In the long term, I am optimistic. I look forward to the day when we have solar power and wind power, with storage capacity, which will reduce costs.

Care Workers: Professional Register

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Only last week we opened a consultation on whether or not to make registration mandatory and to move towards it. When I spoke to people in the department about why it is currently voluntary and not mandatory, they said it was because they did not want to inadvertently put people off registering. They were worried that some people might leave the sector if registration was mandatory now. The noble Lord can shake his head, but this is a very real concern. We want to make sure it is voluntary first and we are consulting on the steps towards mandatory registration.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord’s Question is timely, with the Government’s consultation on future statutory regulation and the criteria that could form the basis of assessing whether regulation is appropriate. We all want to see care workers given the professional status that they deserve, but, as has been said, this needs a whole suite of key improvements on pay, training, career structure and development. Does the Minister agree that paying staff a wage that truly reflects the importance and value of their work is an essential first step and what action are the Government taking to ensure this?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will appreciate, many people who work in social care are employed by private care home owners and other bits of the sector. If she looks at the minimum wage, there has been an announcement of 6.6%, effective from 1 April, which means that workers will be paid more, but one of the bases of some of the additional funding that we have announced is to convince local authorities to put pressure on private care home owners and others to make sure that they pay staff more.

Hospital Beds and Social Care

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, with today’s reports of hundreds of care homes closing their doors to new admissions because of the rapid spread of omicron, adding to the huge pressure on hospitals, can the Minister explain in more detail why urgent priority funding is not being directed to the provision of step-down facilities to address the escalating crisis? We are told that we have new diagnostic units and resurrected Nightingale hospitals, but step-down facilities in local NHS and community settings, where patients medically fit for discharge can be monitored and properly assessed, have been shown to be working very successfully. Would not that provide the right care at the right time, as promised in last month’s social care White Paper?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

We have been looking at different pathways out of hospitals, and one of the discharge pathways is step-down care. One issue that the task force has looked at is how we improve and increase accessibility to appropriate step-down care when a patient is unable to go straight to their home.

NHS: Elective and Cancer Care Backlog

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

One thing that the Government are doing is looking at a number of different ways in which we can think outside the box and be multifaceted to make sure that, for example, instead of patients going directly to A&E they can be dealt with by 111 or other services. In addition, we are committed to delivering 50,000 more nurses, growing the workforce and making sure that we have a trained workforce not only in healthcare but in social care.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, the NAO report clearly showed that performance against NHS waiting times had been steadily deteriorating prior to the pandemic, and that during the pandemic there were between 24,000 and 74,000 missing urgent GP referrals for suspected cancer. For the most common cancer in the UK—breast cancer—it is estimated that the disruption in screening services during Covid means that 12,000 people are living with undiagnosed breast cancer, 10,600 fewer breast cancer patients started treatment and 20,000 fewer people last year were referred for breast checks. What specific action is being taken to address this deeply worrying situation?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Even before the pandemic there was a growing number of referrals across elective and cancer care. This had been driven by a number of different factors, including people’s awareness of cancer, the symptoms associated with it and media campaigns. In addition, one of successes of having an ageing population is that people face a number of different issues. For example, over half of cancers are diagnosed in patients over 65. We know that we have to tackle this issue. That is why we have published the long-term plan with a £33.9 billion budget.

Adult Social Care

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

I thank the Government for the Statement, which has been a long time coming.

First, we are told that we have a health and social care Bill to deal with integration across the NHS and social care. Instead, we get a giant Bill that is largely about NHS reorganisation to undo the structures set up by this Government in 2012. We are also told that there is a plan to fix social care, but we now have a government levy that has working-class families paying for extra funding that could in any event result in the NHS swallowing up most of the money to deal with the ever-growing waiting lists for vital treatment, with little left for social care. Finally, we have the grand announcement of the care cap, for which there was strong cross-party support when it was first proposed by Andrew Dilnot in 2011 and legislated for in 2014. However, it is now due to be delayed for yet another two years and introduced at half the level recommended by Dilnot, with the terrible and deadly sting in the tail of the last-minute amendment to the NHS Bill that was forced through the Commons last week and means that state-funded care costs will not be counted towards the care cap at all.

I remind the House that we have waited for this social care White Paper for four years, with unexplained delay after delay against a backdrop of expectation that, when it finally came, the NHS and care Bill would embrace NHS and social care integration. The proposals for this and other measures in the White Paper should have been an integral part of the Bill, which we will begin to debate next week. Can the Minister tell the House how the integrated care system under the Bill will be integrated for social care? Will there be another piece of legislation? If so, what will it seek to do?

Of course, Labour has called for and supports a number of the measures in the White Paper, such as improving the housing options available to older and disabled people and the potential for technology to improve standards of care. However, there are two central flaws in the Government’s latest approach. First, Ministers have utterly failed to deal with the immediate pressures facing social care as we head into one of the most difficult winters on record. Secondly, they have failed to set out the long-term vision and reforms that we need to deliver a care system fit for the future.

Last week, we learned that a staggering 400,000 older and disabled people are now on council waiting lists for care, with 40,000 of them waiting more than a year. There are more than 100,000 staff vacancies and turnover rates are soaring. Because of these shortages, 1.5 million hours of home care could not be delivered between August and October alone, and half of all councils report care homes going bust or home providers handing back contracts. Hundreds of thousands of older and disabled people are being left without the vital support they need, piling even more pressure on their families and the NHS at the worst possible time.

Does the Minister recognise the figure, reported this week, that 42,000 care staff have left their jobs since April? How will this White Paper ensure that care homes facing huge staff shortages can stay open and recruit and retain staff? Absolutely nothing new has been announced to deal with these crucial issues. Where is the plan to end waiting lists for care? Unless people get support when and where they need it, they will end up needing more expensive residential or hospital care, which is worse for them and for the taxpayer. We know that improving access is the first step in delivering a much more fundamental shift in the focus of support towards prevention and early intervention so that people can continue to live independently in their own homes for as long as possible. Without enough staff with the right training working in the right teams, this will never be achieved.

Where is the long-term strategy to transform the pay, training and terms and conditions of care workers, and to deliver at least 500,000 additional care workers by 2030, just to meet the growing demand? Why do the Government persist in having separate workforce strategies for the NHS and social care when the two are inextricably linked? Where is the joined-up strategy for the whole health and social care workforce?

The proposals in the White Paper for England’s 11 million family carers, who provide the vast majority of care in this country, are, quite frankly, pitiful. Unpaid carers have been pushed to the limit by trying to look after the people they love. Almost half said that they had not had a break for five years, even before the pandemic struck, and 80% of them are now providing more care than ever before. However, the funding announced amounts to just £1.60 more for each unpaid carer per year. Does the Minister not agree that families deserve so much better?

What was needed today was a long-term vision that finally puts social care where it belongs: on an equal footing with the NHS at the heart of a modernised welfare state. Can the Minister explain how this White Paper does that and delivers the resources needed to bring it about? At its best, social care is about far more than just helping people to get up, wash, dress and get fed, vital though this is. It is about ensuring that all older and disabled people can live the life they choose in the place they call home, with the people they love and doing the things that matter to them most. This should have been the guiding mission of the White Paper, with clear proposals to make users genuine partners in their care by transforming the use of direct payments and personal budgets, and ensuring that the views of users and families drive change in every part of the system, from how services are commissioned to how they are regulated and delivered.

The Government’s proposals fall woefully short of the mark and the reality of their so-called reforms is now clear: it is a tax hike on working people that will not deal with the problems in social care now. It will not even stop them having to sell their homes to pay for care, as the Prime Minister has repeatedly promised. The simple fact is that, under the Government’s proposals, if you own a home worth £1 million more than 90% of your assets will be protected, but if your home is worth £100,000 you could end up losing it all. Millions of working people are paying more tax, not to improve their family’s care or stop their own life savings being wiped out but to protect the homes of the wealthiest. This is not fixing the crisis in social care, let alone real social care reform. It is unfair and just wrong.

Dementia: Art and Music-based Interventions

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for all her work raising awareness of dementia, in this House and outside of it. The Government understand the importance of non-medical and lifestyle factors in supporting people’s health and well-being, including brain health. This is why we are continuing to roll out social prescribing across the NHS, in line with the NHS Long Term Plan commitment to have at least 900,000 people referred to social prescribing by 2023-24. The Department of Health and Social Care is working closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement to incorporate social prescribing into the guidance to integrated care systems. Some of this guidance has already been included in the document implementation guidance on partnerships with the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector that was published in September 2021.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

Around 25,000 people with dementia are from BAME communities and this is expected to double by 2026. The Alzheimer’s Society report, The Fog of Support, found that people from these communities, and those with English as an additional language, were more likely to use BAME-led groups. The report also found that there is generally a need for interventions to be much more culturally sensitive. What action are the Government taking to ensure that people with dementia can access culturally appropriate care, including art and music-based interventions, which reflect a wide range of cultures and languages?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities is looking at areas where there are clear disparities. As part of developing the dementia strategy, the Government are consulting with a wide range of stakeholders and ensuring that a diverse range of views from different communities is heard and that it is not targeted just at one particularly community.

Clinical Negligence Claims

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My noble friend raises an important point. The Government remain committed to continuous safety improvement, particularly on developing learning cultures in our health system and tackling the issues of denial and delay. While we strive towards this goal, we have seen that the cost of clinical negligence claims has quadrupled in the last 15 years, and there is no guarantee that reducing harm would necessarily result in fewer claims. In many cases, the overall costs are being driven by increases in the average cost per claim. Indeed, claims have recently levelled out, falling from £2.26 billion to £2.17 billion but this is largely due, in least in part, to the coronavirus pandemic.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, the annual cost of clinical negligence has risen from £1 million in 1975 to £2.2 billion last year, as we have just heard. The Medical Defence Union’s evidence to the Health and Social Care committee’s inquiry into NHS litigation reform predicted that any money raised by the new health and social care levy would be entirely swallowed up by the amounts being paid out each year in NHS clinical negligence claims. What assessment have the Government made of this claim, how does it impact their plans to reduce the huge NHS waiting lists for treatments, and what money will be left for social care?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises an important point that spending more on compensation means less money for the care of patients. That is why we are committed to looking at various ways of reducing this and are working with the Ministry of Justice. Issues include the role the royal colleges play and the training they give to their medical staff, while needing to instil a culture of more openness when things go wrong. When things go right, we are ready to praise but when things go wrong, they have to stop hiding, delaying and denying, and be open.

David Fuller Case

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for the Statement and its contents, and I fully welcome the Government’s announcement of an independent inquiry into this unspeakably vile and horrific crime. Across the House, our thoughts and hearts go out to the families of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce and those with deceased loved ones. These 100 victims—we are talking about the corpses of 100 women—were, as has been reported in the press, violated in the most monstrous, vile and sickening way.

Will the Secretary of State confirm that all the families impacted will have immediate access to the psychological counselling and support that they need? Will NHS staff at the hospital, many of whom will themselves be devastated, also have access to appropriate counselling and support? What steps are being taken to identify the 19 victims yet to be identified?

I also pay tribute to local Members of Parliament across Kent and Sussex who have spoken up on behalf of their communities in recent days. ln particular, the MP for Tunbridge Wells, Greg Clark, said over the weekend that authorities and politicians must

“ask serious questions as to how this could have happened and … establish that it can never happen again.”

This is why the inquiry is so crucial. Can the Minister set out its timetable and say when the terms of reference will be published? Can he confirm that its remit will allow it to make recommendations for the whole NHS, as well as for the local NHS trust?

Fuller was caught because of a murder investigation, which in itself prompts a number of questions about the regulation of mortuaries. The Human Tissue Authority, which regulates hospital mortuaries, reviewed one of the mortuaries in question as part of its regulatory procedures. It raised no security concerns, but found a lack of full audits, examples of lone working and issues with CCTV coverage in another hospital in the trust. Will the inquiry look at the way in which the HTA reviews hospital mortuaries, as well as its standards and how they are enforced? Will it be asked to recommend new processes that the Secretary of State will put in place if it is found that a mortuary fails to meet the necessary high standards for lone workers, security and care? If the HTA’s role is not to be included in the inquiry, how will this work be undertaken by the Government and within what timescales?

The requirement for NHS trusts to review their procedures and ensure that they are following current HTA rules and guidance is very welcome. This procedure must include the requirement for all mortuaries to document and record the access of all staff and visitors entering a mortuary, ensure that CCTV is in place comprehensively across all mortuaries, and that CCTV standards on usage and access records are fully enforced. Can the Minister confirm this? What is the timeframe for hospitals to adopt the extra rules that have been announced on CCTV coverage, swipe access and DBS checks in every single hospital and mortuary? Can the Minister confirm whether this will be guidance or a statutory requirement? There are, of course, other premises where dead bodies are stored, such as funeral directors, that do not fall under the regulatory remit of the Human Tissue Authority, so will the authority’s remit be extended? Will the inquiry look at regulations for other premises where bodies are stored?

The Minister will agree that the conduct of the inquiry itself will be very important for victims’ families. Will they be allowed to give evidence on the devastating impact that the crimes have had on them? When our loved ones are admitted into the hands of medical care, that is done on the basis of a bond of trust that they will be cared for when sick and accorded dignity in death. That bond of trust was callously ripped apart here. I repeat the offer from our shadow Secretary of State, Jonathan Ashworth, to work with the Secretary of State to ensure that something so sickening never happens again.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

[Inaudible]—but that such a prolonged period of abuse was able to take place without it being noticed. We echo the sincere condolences to the families and friends of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce, as well as the many families and friends of those whose bodies David Fuller so foully desecrated.

The Statement says that the families and friends will have access to mental health support and counselling. That is good, but can the Minister confirm that it will be available for as long as they need it and will not be time limited? Will the staff at the mortuaries and hospitals, as well as the police and the over 150 family liaison officers involved in this case, also have access to counselling? They too have had to deal with this very distressing series of events.

We must obviously be very careful in our discussions today pending the sentencing of David Fuller, but we welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement for the upgrading of the trust’s independent review to an independent inquiry, to be chaired by Sir Jonathan Michael.

In August 2018, the Health Service Journal reported that 58 mortuaries that had been inspected in 2017-18 revealed that more than 500 “shortfalls” were exposed during that period. Worryingly, that included eight critical failings. At that time, the Human Tissue Authority as regulator and the various other regulated bodies undertook to look at the large increase in failings that year and to review practice. What actions were taken following those 2017-18 reports and were measures on access by staff to mortuaries among them? I ask this because, looking at the Human Tissue Authority’s codes of practice online, almost the entire focus seems to be on those whose role is to be involved with bodies. In Code A: Guiding Principles and the Fundamental Principle of Consent, the only reference I can find that does not relate to those with direct responsibilities for bodies is in paragraph 14 on page 7, which begins:

“Quality should underpin the management of human tissue and bodies.”


It goes on to say that this means that:

“practitioners’ work should be subject to a system of governance that ensures the appropriate and safe storage and use of human tissue and which safeguards the dignity of the living or deceased”,

and that

“premises, facilities and equipment should be clean, secure and subject to regular maintenance”.

One of the concerning issues relating to this case is that Mr Fuller ceased to be an employee of the Tunbridge Wells health authority in 2011 when the maintenance contract was subcontracted out. Will the inquiry look at not just whether employees of subcontractors working in sensitive areas are subject to DBS checks but whether there is a duty on their employer to report any findings to the hospital, or in this case the mortuary? Mr Fuller had a previous criminal record, but it is reported that the hospital did not know this.

There is another issue which I have not heard referred to either here or in the Statement in another place yesterday, and that is our criminal justice system’s approach to the desecration of bodies. The respected criminologist Professor Jason Roach from Huddersfield University has analysed the policing of and law in Britain towards necrophilia. He found an almost complete absence of case studies, which is not true in the rest of the world. Indeed, it was not until the Sexual Offences Act 2003 that necrophilia became a criminal offence in its own right, but he says there is no evidence that anyone has ever been prosecuted. He reports that, as part of his research in 2016, he was told by one senior police officer that it was very unlikely that the police would ever urge the Crown Prosecution Service to charge an offender.

One hypothesis that Professor Roach explores in his 2016 work “No Necrophilia Please, We’re British” is that

“the attitude of the British criminal justice system towards necrophilia echoes that of the British public, i.e. one of embarrassment, whereby those caught are either not charged with a criminal offence or, perhaps for the sake of the deceased’s family, are charged with a less degrading offence such as grave robbing. Both routes will produce less attention-grabbing stories”.

Can the Minister say if the review will look at police and criminal justice system attitudes towards necrophilia or other forms of desecration of bodies? One of the deeply unsatisfactory legacies of Jimmy Savile’s extended abuse is the suspicion of his undertaking such activities. However, perhaps through embarrassment, there has been no real examination of that case and the cultures of the places where he was able to have access to the dead.

Can the Minister say if any lessons learned so far will be reported and implemented straightaway, before the full independent inquiry reports, to give the public confidence that hospital mortuaries are safe and secured? As ever, if the Minister does not have any of the answers to my questions to hand, please will he write to me with them?