Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Whitaker and Baroness Harding of Winscombe

Committee stage
Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, following the impressive, high-calibre tour d’horizon from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, I rise to support the importance of proper and full rehabilitation as in Amendment 100, again supported by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. Perhaps I should have declared, at my last intervention in Committee, that I speak as a vice chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Speech and Language Difficulties—I apologise.

Very briefly, an annual plan, as in Amendment 100, would ensure that rehabilitation is explicitly integrated. Rehabilitation spans many disciplines, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said. It is what enables those who have degenerative diseases, strokes, cancer, autism and learning difficulties, to name only a few, to communicate—how essential is that for even minimal well-being?—as well as helping people to, for instance, swallow without choking and stay alive. As ever, it is the vulnerable who suffer when these structural underpinnings to ensure joined-up, consistent care are not there. I hope the Government will adopt these amendments.

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, first, I apologise for arriving a little late for this debate. I hope that your Lordships will allow me to add my voice of support to this group of amendments.

We all come to this Bill with the same intentions and belief that collaboration and integration are the future for a health and care system. This group of amendments tackles the uncomfortable reality that, despite everyone’s best intentions—both in our NHS and in local government social care and even in the private sector—to collaborate and deliver integrated care, we are not doing that. A number of these amendments practically point at ways in which we can move from the rhetoric to practical change.

I particularly support Amendment 101B, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Layard. As a great economist, he is pointing us in the direction of an economic structure and nudge that will force us on to a path to do what we have all talked about for a long time, which is to create parity of esteem between mental and physical health. We debated the importance of mental health in great detail last week, so I do not wish to repeat that, but I want to add my voice to that of the noble Lord in supporting his amendment because it is very practical.

By creating a ratchet that gets us on to a path whereby inch by inch—week by week, month by month and year by year—we start to close the gap between physical and mental health provision, we would start practically on the path that we want to go on without creating a funding hole. This would allow the NHS and our overall health and care system to go step by step at an achievable pace, while recognising that we come out of the Covid pandemic with such enormous physical health waiting lists that achieving parity of esteem will be even harder than it was two years ago, so it is even more important that we force a mechanism in. The second element of this amendment would also force outcome measurement.

This is a very smart and simple amendment. I know that my noble friend the Minister cares deeply about this agenda, as does the Secretary of State, and I urge them to adopt it.