Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Baroness Thornton

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

In response to that last remark, it depends on whether Monitor decides it is collusion or collaboration. That is the key point. We suggested that that was a problem right at the very beginning of the Bill—how you distinguish between collaboration and collusion and what you do about that. I do not think we are any closer to finding the answer.

I turn to remarks that were made during the course of this very useful if diverse debate. I want to take one moment to say something to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and her colleagues and to the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, about the fact that they feel misrepresented in social and other media. Indeed, as politicians it goes with the territory that you may be misrepresented from time to time. I have the greatest respect and admiration for the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and she knows herself that that is where you are when you are in politics.

However, the noble Baroness herself wrote in an article in the Guardian on 13 February about dropping the chapter on competition, and in a letter that the noble Baroness and her leader wrote to their own MPs and Peers, they set a high bar for how Part 3 of the Bill might be made safe. It is just and proper that everybody will be looking at the noble Baroness and her friends to see and test whether they have succeeded and met their own aspirations. At the moment, I think that that is open to question. I do not think that it has been achieved. I know that that might be painful, but that is the case.

We have had some thoughtful amendments and contributions. As usual, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, in her amendment and questions put her finger on a very important issue that the Bill needs to address even at this late stage. I had a great deal of sympathy with the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. I rather hoped that she would get a more positive response than she did and I am sorry about that.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

The noble Baroness is perfectly entitled to say what she had said. I accept that fully and I am sure that she said it in all sincerity. But the difference between us is that I believe that the Government have moved a long way, particularly because of the Minister. I believe that that culmination of changes will enable us to bring about an improved NHS. I may be proved wrong. I freely accept that I may be proved wrong. But I believe that the changes that have been made are so far reaching that we can make the NHS better than it is today. I know that the noble Baroness, who herself has been responsible in her attitude towards the Bill, would wish to see that, even though she may not think that this is the way to do it.

[Baroness Thornton]

I am not sure whether this is the way to do it. We disagree. I do not think that the Liberal Democrats have achieved it, but there we are. As the noble Baroness said, history will see who is right and who is wrong.

I am extremely pleased to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has transferred her attention from the Welfare Reform Bill to this one. She is quite correct that it is impossible to stop the negative impact that has been observed in the studies that she referred to. She is completely right about that. This whole debate illustrates the problem: half of the Bill seems to be there to mitigate the damage that the other half does. What used to be, for example, a clear duty to co-operate—and it was a simple duty—is now dense and complex.

Turning to our Amendment 163B, I should like to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, that it does not rule out the economic regulator function. That amendment does not seek to do that, so I hope that the noble Baroness, with that reassurance, might support our amendment. We seek to clarify and put beyond doubt that Monitor should have that function. We seek to do it in the first part of the Bill. We want Monitor to keep its current role. We believe that there should be two bodies and that it is difficult for Monitor to do both jobs at once, but it is important at this point of this first part of the Bill that we make it completely clear. Where the Bill says that Monitor should be the,

“Independent Regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts”,

we need to make it completely clear that it will continue to do that job.

We are not trying to weaken the role of Monitor. We think that foundation trusts are facing huge risks and huge reorganisation. They need the support that Monitor will offer them. I suspect that the Francis report, as I said earlier, will indeed have something to say about the strength and importance of Monitor as a regulator of foundation trusts. We would like this to be in the Bill because it makes it completely clear that this is an important job that Monitor does and that it should keep doing that job for the foreseeable future. I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Baroness Thornton

Thursday 15th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I thank my noble friend Lady Garden very much indeed for intervening. I would like to express the apologies of my noble friend Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames for being unable to be here on this occasion. Unfortunately he has been taken ill and will probably not be in the House again before the Christmas Recess. He extends his apologies to the House and his deep regrets at being unable to be here to move this amendment. It is therefore my honour to do so on his behalf.

The first amendment amends paragraph 9(3) of Schedule 7 to the National Health Service Act 2006 to remove the requirement for a governor to be appointed by a PCT. The reason for governors being appointed by PCTs, of course, is that they were the key sub-national level of organisation under the previous National Health Service. The Act of 2006 therefore reflects that organisational structure. I submit to the House that in the new structure it is as important that the national Commissioning Board should be able to appoint at least one—and, one hopes, more—governors to the board because of the need for a clear link between the clinical commissioning groups and the boards of the foundation trusts. Our amendment requires that at least one member be appointed by the NHS Commissioning Board in the place of the PCT appointee who will no longer be able to take his place. A substantial number of NHS patients—one hopes a majority—are patients under the foundation trusts. It is therefore important that the concerns of the CCGs and of the board should be represented on foundation trust governing bodies.

I will also briefly speak to Amendments 300, 301, 302 and 303 in the same group. All relate to the decisions to be made about the mergers or dissolutions of foundation trusts. The purpose of the amendments is to add the name of the Secretary of State to those who are required to consent to either a merger or a dissolution. I shall explain very briefly why we believe this to be of great importance. Despite these amendments looking rather petty, they are not.

The Secretary of State is in a unique position to decide on the strategy of the National Health Service over the whole country. He is in an especially good position to be well-informed on the balance between demand and supply across the territory of England. If there is no requirement for him to emerge at this point as the figure who makes the ultimate decision as to whether there should be a dissolution or a merger, there is nobody else able to detect whether the needs of all patients in England are met. As the House will be aware, if a foundation trust merges and perhaps one part of that merger ceases to offer services, that may be very much in the long-term interests of the National Health Service. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, spoke eloquently on this point yesterday. Where a foundation trust is the centre of, for example, pathways in a particular chronic illness, and where it meets the hospital needs of a substantial part of an area of the country, only the Secretary of State is in a position to decide whether that foundation trust merger or dissolution will have a major impact on the health services available in that part of England.

We suggest, once again, that this is not a tactical or micromanagement issue, but a strategic one, given the significance of foundation trusts in many parts of the country. We therefore very strongly urge the Committee to agree to this amendment. We believe it is a crucial part of the strategy of running a National Health Service in England. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, we have all been precipitated into this debate some 10 minutes earlier than we might have expected. I should like to speak to Amendments 296A and 298A, and to whether Clauses 176 and 177 should stand part.

Amendment 296A provides that foundation governors must,

“be notified and have the right to attend all meetings of the Board and its sub-committees and have access to all relevant documents and papers”,

under a “duty to protect confidentiality”. Amendment 298A provides that the accounts of a foundation trust or other public benefit corporation,

“must identify separately the income and expenditure which relates to any private income business, and the audit of such accounts must include assurance that all costs which relate to private income business have been properly calculated or recorded”.

I accept that the Minister has an amendment that is not totally dissimilar to this, but it does not include the words about the need to audit and have income and expenditure on the public record, which we think are rather important. Clause 176 stand part would leave out the clause that abolishes NHS trusts. Clause 177 stand part objects to the repeal of various provisions in the authorisation of foundation trusts.

We have already touched on aspects of foundation trusts. Our position is that we support the concept of foundation trusts as a model for developing a form of multi-stakeholder or community-based governance, and allowing earned autonomy for NHS providers from direct performance management. As we discussed on Tuesday, we accept the role of Monitor as a regulator of foundation trusts. We agree with my noble friend Lord Warner that the plethora of other roles that Monitor has been asked to play poses risks, and we have set out our objections to and worries about that.

We accept that the foundation trust journey is still being travelled. I suggest that it is probably time for a proper independent study of how the foundation model might be taken forward. We are where are, not where someone might have hoped we would be. We make no great claims for foundation trusts but we would agree that the more trusts that can meet the standard the better. However, some will not meet it, for many different reasons. The rush to force them into hasty mergers and takeovers will bring great risks. I point to the fact that only today the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has issued the report Achievement of Foundation Trust Status by NHS Hospital Trusts, which I have asked the Printed Paper Office to make available. I said that it is quite possible that other noble Lords might be interested in it in the course of today’s debate.

On the point about how many trusts will make it to foundation status, I quote from the document:

“By 1 October 2011 there were 139 NHS foundation trusts, and 113 NHS trusts at various stages in the 'pipeline' towards foundation trust status. Only 14 trusts have achieved foundation status since the end of 2009 … The Department expects the majority of trusts to achieve foundation trust status by 2014, but recognises that a small number may not do so before 2016”.

The report goes on to say that there is indeed a very serious problem of hospitals not achieving foundation trust status:

“Twenty hospital trusts have declared themselves unviable in their current form”.

It suggests that more than,

“half of all trusts are not yet foundation trusts and more are likely to conclude they are unviable”,

and goes on to say:

“A particular concern is what will happen to trusts that are unable to achieve foundation status but nevertheless provide an essential service to local people”.

This report’s very timely publication needs to be acknowledged in the course of our debates on these matters.

We do not accept that every NHS provider must be a foundation trust. We agree with Sir David Nicholson that there is scope for some NHS trusts to be permitted. This also allows us to say that a foundation trust can be de-authorised in exceptional circumstances. This Committee needs to discuss the issue of the Government’s rush to say that all trusts must have foundation status. That is clearly not going to work and we have no satisfactory answers at the moment about what is intended under those circumstances.

We will discuss the issue of the private patient cap so I will not refer to it now. We do not go the whole way in deregulation and see a continuing role for Monitor, not just in authorising foundation trusts but, as we said in our earlier debate, in retaining oversight and intervention powers. We agree that the authorisation process should be rigorous and demanding, so the question there which the Minister needs to answer is: if the department is determined to push hospital trusts into foundation status, what does it mean for standards—will they be relaxed? We think that they should not be. If further lessons are needed from Mid Staffs then I suspect that this is one that the inquiry will raise.

We share the view expressed by several noble Lords on Tuesday that there may be examples where the cause of a foundation trust’s problem lies with the local health system rather than poor foundation trust management. A more effective approach to reconfiguration and a sensible pre-failure regime is absolutely necessary. We understand and hope that the Minister is looking into this and look forward to being part of those discussions. Our view is that while having a great deal of autonomy, foundation trusts remain within the NHS; they are not to be hived off as quasi-businesses. We believe that in general only the two extremes differ from our view—those who want a fully publicly owned, public-provided NHS with no split, and a small band around the current Secretary of State who want to make foundation trusts into businesses and, like a private provider, free from all scrutiny. The rest of us are probably somewhere in the middle.

I turn to the amendments. We support the idea that foundation trusts must open their governance and must meet in public—which is vital. We support the idea that to be effective in their duty to hold the board, and especially the non-executives, to account, the governors must have the right to access and observe all meetings and to see all papers. The confidentiality issues which this might involve can be resolved through appropriate codes of conduct, but if governors are to be the main lines of defence then they must be able to know what is happening. Sadly, that is not the case in some foundation trusts.

We support the need to separate properly the accounts in respect of non-NHS business. It is important to avoid smoke-and-mirrors accounting, especially on the issue of the private patient cap, which we will discuss later. Transparency on that issue is vital. The bottom line is that NHS resources should not be provided at knock-down prices. We have had an undertaking that foundation trusts will provide information showing how non-NHS income acts for the benefit of NHS patients, but in the absence of detailed regulations about how that is to be done it would be best to maintain a sceptical view.

In line with our view that foundation trusts remain part of the NHS family, we support the amendments that ensure the Secretary of State must approve major transactions such as mergers. We do not support the Government’s amendments which are a further example of layering of bureaucracy and paperwork to try to justify their failure regime, which pretty much got a hammering on Tuesday and must be thought about again.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Baroness Thornton

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

Did the Government consider any bodies other than the Competition Commission as being appropriate to fulfil this role? If so, which were they and why were they not thought to be appropriate? This is a rather heavy-duty form of monitoring Monitor.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I am puzzled by why the Government do not see the Competition Commission’s overseeing of this area of Monitor’s responsibilities as not being neutral. Would not a body such as the Office of Fair Trading be more appropriate? It has a reputation not only of being more neutral but of having shown in the past particular sensitivity and understanding of health as a service provided to the people of England.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Baroness Thornton

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

The point I am making concerns what we need to do for the future. What happened in Mid Staffs has some bearing on that and I said “instructive”.

The tests that we are suggesting should be applied to any organisation wishing to supply clinical services to the NHS around probity and can be enforced through contracts and licensing. Meeting the conditions without trying to argue commercial confidentiality is now the price of doing business with the NHS, in our view.

Finally we have reservations about the interaction between the licensing regime and the use of standard contracts. Why have both as enforcements? What would be appropriate for each? What is the role of Monitor as regards the contracts? What happens to disputes between providers and commissioners? Do they all go to court? What is the role for Monitor in the resolution of disputes? We have accepted that if you have a licensing system then you have to build a bureaucracy to support it, moving from a top-down management bureaucracy to a regulatory bureaucracy. To keep this to a minimum while remaining effective is not simple, as the CQC is finding. But the system set up in the Bill is very complicated and our amendments seek to simplify it. The nature of the operation as to whether it should be a light-touch risk-based approach or continuous direct inspection is another issue which has plagued the CQC and will have to be resolved by the new Monitor. That is a question we need to put on the table.

I now turn to our amendments. In Amendment 260EB Monitor is to take on duties in relation to authorising through licensing any person who provides healthcare services for the purposes of the NHS. Amendment 279A is to remove any potential ambiguity and stress that providers of primary medical services for the purposes of the NHS must hold a licence. Clause 82 stand part is to facilitate a discussion about who can be exempt from the requirement for health service providers to be licensed and who makes those decisions. In Amendment 282A, since this a strong power granted to Monitor to revoke a licence, we add qualifications that in the case of a foundation trust Monitor must consult the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State may veto any revocation if it is deemed not to be in patients’ or taxpayers’ interests. In Amendment 282B the Secretary of State, not Monitor, should determine the principles or framework behind the licensing conditions and Monitor must then have regard to these. Amendment 283 specifies that the standard conditions included in each licence must set out various minimum standards such as for governance arrangements, meeting in public, employment conditions, co-operation with local-authority overview and scrutiny functions. Amendment 283A contains the issue of there being no need to have different standard conditions for different descriptions of licences.

Amendments 286ZA, 287ZA and 287ZB set limits on Monitor’s functions to set and modify the licence conditions, simplifying its role. Amendment 287BA leaves out the roles of Monitor relating to licence conditions, price and charging. Amendment 287F requires licence holders to be fully subject to the overview and scrutiny functions of local authorities. In Amendment 288ZB Monitor has the power to modify the standard conditions applicable to all licences, and in doing so there should be no need for a vote among providers but consultation and consent from the Secretary of State is required. In Clauses 99 and 100 stand part we raise the issue of minimising the bureaucracy surrounding licensing. In Clause 101 stand part we argue that the requirements for fair eligibility and transparency in selection should be covered under the PRCC. This is a probing amendment designed to strengthen the clause instead of deleting it on Report. We think that that should be a matter for discussion. Amendment 288DZA regards Monitor’s power to impose discretionary requirements, including fines, on providers and licence holders if they fail to provide required documents or information, which can only occur with the consent of the Secretary of State. Any fine must be held by the local CCG for reinvestment in services in that area. Amendment 288DA states that if any provider is in breach of a licence Monitor may take action against them, including the imposition of fines, but only with the consent of the Secretary of State. I beg to move.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I would like to address just one of the amendments in this group, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames. Unfortunately my noble friend has been taken ill and is unable to be here. He extends his profound apologies to the Committee.

This amendment is significant in strengthening the general approach towards competition under Section 3 of the Bill, by making it quite plain that the requirements that have to be met, which we will come to in Part 4, must also apply to licence holders. I am in a slight difficulty, as my noble friend Lord Howe will appreciate, as the Government have tabled amendments on aspects of foundations trusts which will arise at a later stage in the Bill, particularly under Clause 161, which are related to the amendment to which I am now speaking. I will therefore do my best to navigate around Clause 161 in so far as I can. However, I may have to make limited reference to it in order to make clear what my own amendment is about. My own amendment is essentially one that would support, and indeed further improve, the proposals put forward in this particular amendment. They should therefore be read together with Clause 161 and Amendments 299ZA and 299AZA in the name of the Government.

We want to make two requirements as a fundamental part of the requirements that licence holders have to meet. We appreciate that, in many ways, the licence-holding requirements are fundamental to the way in which the Bill operates, because it must be the case that providers are brought within the general structure of the Bill itself. Our amendment makes two particular points about that. The first is that the revenue from private patients, as a percentage of the licence holder’s total revenue, must be kept below 50 per cent. Secondly, and at least as importantly, the number of private patients in a foundation trust hospital must also be kept below that proportion.

The main point of this amendment—I think that it is an important one—is again to establish that we are looking at foundation trusts that are part of the provision under the NHS and that a minority of both income and patient numbers would be required for any provision made. We hope, as I think the noble Baroness said, that this set of requirements continues well beyond 2016 as part of the structure of the relationship of foundations trusts to the health services, and that this is therefore not standing alone but a crucial part of the whole strategy.

If the noble Lord, Lord Owen, were in his place, I would say that if this is not the rail track of the French railways, it is at least the rolling stock, and we need both to have an effective railway service. However, I wanted to say one other thing. The first part of the amendment tabled this morning by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, goes a very long way. We will talk about this in more detail later so I shall only sketch it out now, given the time. I think that the first part of the amendment, with regard to income—and indeed the requirement that income must exceed the costs of providing that income, and that it must be used for the purposes of patients within the health services—is a very full and useful advance. It is very close to the phrasing of the 2006 Act, which is a point that I am sure will come across to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and her colleagues, but with the additional wording that makes it, if anything, even stronger.

The noble Earl, Lord Howe, will know from discussions which I and my colleagues have had with him that we would want to see this supplemented, if possible, by a reference to the proportion of patients in foundation trust hospitals. Quite broadly, that is something the public can understand, whereas references to quite complicated percentages of income, although equally important—if not more so—are perhaps less transparent and less apparent.

I will not pursue further the new amendments beyond welcoming them, but I want to advance this particular, although limited, amendment as thoroughly as I can, as I think it would ensure that licence holders were held to the same kind of requirements that we are imposing upon Monitor, the national Commissioning Board and the CCGs. It must be the case that this should be a common approach across the front.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Baroness Thornton

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I also speak to my other amendments in this group. Over supper my noble friend reminded me that the late lamented Lord Carter, a previous Government Chief Whip, used to say to Ministers and others that if we needed to save time, the thing to do was to speak only from every other page and see if anybody noticed. What I intend to do is to try and speak from every other paragraph.

These issues deal with the serious potential conflicts of interest that GPs will face in their new role as commissioners of health services. When this group of amendments first started out it contained only two amendments but it has now, quite rightly, grown substantially to address the major concerns of transparency, integrity and patient confidence and the issue of trust that must be addressed in their new role. In passing, I would say that the publication of the Government’s recent draft guidance on commissioning, Developing Commissioning Support: Towards Service Excellence, in effect decrees that by 2016 the real work of CCGs will be outsourced, presumably to large private providers, which makes me start to question what is left for CCGs to worry about. However, the issue that these amendments deal with is a fundamental issue of the Bill.

We all have high regard for our GPs and we trust them as experts and advisors. We know from the evidence that they do a cost-effective and good job. Our national system of GPs may be quirky, half in and half out of the NHS, but it works. At its best, it is the very best system in the world.

We are concerned that the Bill endangers the trust that patients have for their GPs and, essentially, these amendments seek to explore and to test that. GPs are going to be decision-makers across the whole breadth of commissioning, making decisions about priorities and standards, things that may often be unpopular, and reconfigurations of service. They will handle huge amounts of money, own budgets and get bonuses for good financial performance. So patients need to be assured that they can continue to trust their GP and that their GP will always act in the patient’s best interest. This concern has been flagged up by the BMA and the Royal College of General Practitioners, so I hope that the Minister can tell the House how we will be able to protect the image and reputation of our GPs after the first CCG goes wrong. Amendment 156 starts with the obvious necessary safeguard that providers of primary medical services who have a direct or indirect financial interest in the provision of services that a CCG is required to provide must not be members of the CCG. Amendment 161 is also key in requiring the Secretary of State to issue guidance which must be incorporated into CCG constitutions on how conflicts of interest must be dealt with by consortia as part of their decision-making. Transparency and clarity about how potential conflicts of interest would be managed is essential if the confidence of the public is to be maintained.

Openness and transparency are supported by Amendment 176A, requiring CCGs to maintain a publicly accessible register of all potential conflicts of interest of individuals involved in any part of their commissioning process. Taken together, Amendments 176A and 224 reinforce this, and call for regulations to stipulate that no provider should be a member of a CCG if they have any financial interest in the provision of any service the CCG is required to commission; in other words, open book accounting.

We do not think it is enough, as Amendment 228 proposes, for a CCG member merely to declare their financial interest in a commissioning decision being taken by their CCG, or absent themselves from decision making on that provider. We expect our councillors to operate under this regime. We should expect other people responsible for public money to do the same. Indeed, this transparency and openness, and the declaration of interests, should be extended to their families, in the same way that it is for other public servants.

Finally, I want to underline that we recognise that extending GP commissioning and setting up CCGs has the potential to give GPs freedom to innovate, improve services and use commissioning to develop new models of care in the interests of the communities they serve. The safeguards against conflicts of interest proposed in these amendments are not designed to shackle CCGs. As I have said, the Department of Health commissioning guidance already does that. The safeguards will ensure that they abide by the reasonable rules, regulations and codes of practice that we would expect of any statutory body responsible for taxpayers’ money worth millions of pounds.

The public needs to be assured that robust governance arrangements are in place for commissioning consortia, and that conflicts of interest will be managed effectively. I beg to move.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the intention behind this amendment. Noble Lords will remember that from the very beginning of the discussion about this Bill, there has been a great deal of concern about the conflict of interest that could so easily arise. Many of us recognise that the relationship between patients and general practitioners crucially depends upon that relationship being one of trust. The same will apply, if the commissioning groups work well, to the relationship between them and the patients who are within the practices of which they are part. So I sympathise very much with what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has proposed, and also with what the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has proposed in Amendment 161.

Our concerns on this side of the House are not with the whole motivation behind this. We believe that that is extremely important and we completely share it. It is our feeling, rather, that the remedies are not adequate to the scale. We feel, for example, that one of the weaknesses of both amendments is the lack of any effective sanctions against those who breach what would be a relationship of trust. At the moment there is not provision within the Bill for effective sanctions, which can be used to ensure that these high-minded and perfectly proper principles are lived by.

The Nolan principles have been very effective in local government—as we all know—and increasingly effective in national Government. There are references to those in the course of the Bill, but there is no specific determination that members of the partnership groups or the CCGs would be dealt with, if they were in breach of the requirement that they should not ever put their own interests ahead of those of their patients.

I suggest to the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Finlay, and her associates in moving these various amendments, that they would look at the amendment we have put down—and I suggest this with due humility—which effectively brings into practice powerful sanctions. We believe these will be effective in ensuring that this relationship of trust is upheld, and also that powerful requirements lie on every CCG, as well as on the board itself, that it would be absolutely clear that all interests must be declared publicly.

These will ensure that once people’s names are on the register, and they have made a declaration of the appropriate kind about their own interest never being put forward as the reason for a decision, there are then effective measures that will enable the whole issue to be dealt with in detail, with appropriate requirements of sanctions and of effective punishment for those who breach them. We believe this to be absolutely central to the working of the clinical commissioning groups and to the whole relationship of doctors to their patients.

So, with those few words, I hope I can persuade the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Finlay, to have a look at the proposals that we have put forward, which, I am pleased to say, have at least to some extent the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Baroness Thornton

Monday 28th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I remain puzzled by these amendments from the Labour Benches because it seems quite clear that the purpose of the provision was to make sure that the commissioning groups and the board would not use their considerable influence and power to change, for dogmatic reasons, the balance between private and public sector provision. That must be right. It must be right that only quality and the response to patients’ needs should determine what that balance is. I very much welcome this provision. I thought it was an important safeguard against anybody seeing the Bill as having a particular dogmatic purpose. I was quite surprised that the Labour Front Bench took a different view and put down these amendments. It seems as if it was determined to find some flaw in this provision and it is a provision that is intended to show genuine commitment to a level playing field. It is perfectly proper for the Labour Front Bench to pursue questions about the provision but it is quite clear that it refuses to take the provision, even for a moment, at face value.

I have one or two questions. I know that the hour is late so I do not intend to keep the House for more than a moment or two, but there are some interesting questions to raise. One question was about the position with regard to the partnership that has been advocated by the Minister in other parts of this Bill and the deliberate attempt to reach partnerships between the private and public sector. For example, the private sector in its role of innovating and coming up with new ideas would be very properly in some cases partnered with a public sector body, such as a clinical commissioning group. How does the Minister see that as compatible with the wording of the Bill?

The wording of the Bill is pretty clear. It relates first to the board and then to Monitor and makes it plain that in both cases those boards should not use their particular powers to advance the cause of one side or the other. Therefore, I found it puzzling that this set of amendments should be tabled—in particular the attempt to decide that Clause 144 should not stand part of the Bill.

With those words, I wait for the Minister’s reply. I do not want to delay the Committee, but I have to say that I was genuinely puzzled by the Labour Front Bench’s decision to put down amendments of this kind and to question Clause 144.

[Baroness Thornton]

I think that I explained to the noble Baroness earlier today that these are probing amendments. When we received the briefing from ACEVO, we were very concerned, and that is why we tabled the amendments. It is very important for those of us who have been promoting the voluntary sector all these years that we find out what the truth is. They are probing amendments; there is no intention at all to press them, and I said that from the outset. They are to explore the meaning and the effect of the provisions. Sometimes amendments can have unintended consequences. I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that this is not partisan; it is a genuine effort to get some explanation for how this part of the Bill might work.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Baroness Thornton

Monday 28th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, perhaps I may speak to the amendments in this group which are in my name. First, Amendment 110A concerns NICE guidelines and is very much like that tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Newton and Lord Butler. In fact, theirs may be even better than mine so I intend to say no more than that we are interested in the Minister exploring this issue, because those noble Lords both more than adequately covered the points that need to be made in that regard. I am also very pleased to support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Royall and to put my name to those, because the role of specialist nurses is extremely important.

Amendments 118, 119 and 120 concern the duty of the board to reduce inequalities. Proposed new Section 13G of the 2006 Act states that the board must,

“have regard to the need to—

(a) reduce inequalities between patients with respect to their ability to access health services;

(b) reduce inequalities between patients with respect to the outcomes achieved for them by the

provision of health services”.

This seems a rather narrow definition concerned solely with health services, which I assume flows from the continual and overriding responsibility of the Secretary of State for tackling health inequalities. I would be grateful if the noble Earl could confirm to the Committee how the Secretary of State intends to tackle health inequalities—what information he will need, where he will get it from and how those decisions will then be moved through the proposed structures of the National Health Service Commissioning Board, the CCGs and so on.

Surely, the health and well-being boards would want to have some involvement from the NHS on health inequalities, so Amendment 118 seeks to ensure that the board has health inequalities in its remit. I particularly refer the Minister to the letter from the NHS Future Forum to the Secretary of State on 17 November where it devoted much attention to the NHS role in improving public health and made its claim that the NHS must design its services in a way that both promotes good health and prevents poor outcomes. It is thus important that the legislation provides sufficient leeway to allow the NHS Commissioning Board to do this and that legislation relating to health inequalities is not confined solely to the provision and commissioning of services.

What is also important, in coming to my Amendment 119, is that funding to the clinical commissioning group reflects the deprivation levels within its area. Can the Minister tell the Committee whether there has been a risk assessment on the issues of funding? What risks has the department found that go with the levels of funding that might be made available on the basis of deprivation levels within areas?

Of course, the decision of the Secretary of State not to make clinical commissioning groups area-based is a serious problem in ensuring a population base for commissioning, but it will be doubly important to ensure that clinical commissioning groups with large numbers of deprived patients receive financial support. I would be grateful if the Minister could spell out the intended principles behind the funding associated with clinical commissioning groups.

On Amendments 110B, 127ZA and 190AA, which concern maternity services, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, has adequately covered the major concerns about those services and we would be keen to support her amendments. I am grateful to the Royal College of Midwives for its briefing on these amendments. My only questions are about maternity networks and the recognition of their potential contribution to the type of maternity care and providing clinical commissioners with expert guidance and advice on driving up standards.

The Committee will be very pleased to hear that I do not intend to share any birthing stories. On the other hand, I am concerned. Without a national standard for maternity services, how will the new commissioning arrangements avoid significant variations? We know, for example, that there is a significant variation between trusts in the number of home births that take place. We can explore the reasons for that, but I would like to know how the new structures would deal with such variations and how that would be reflected in the work of the National Health Service Commissioning Board.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I have Amendment 112 and 113 in this group. I have a comment regarding the excellent speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and would like the Minister to reply to it. NICE has suggested that all women expecting babies could have the right to consider the possibility of a caesarean birth. Before the choice is finally made, will that be associated with advice from doctors indicating that caesarean births are certainly not as straightforward as some people believe them to be, and for cosmetic reasons may be deeply regretted afterwards? I was a little worried that NICE had given this green light, as it were, to caesarean births without associating it with any form of counselling to the mothers concerned, not least because, as many people in this House will know, the outcomes in terms of morbidity and infant mortality are not as good as people imagine them to be in comparison with a normal birth. Perhaps the Minister could say something about that. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, could also say something about it when she responds on her useful and important amendments, to which I hope the House will give an extremely warm welcome.

Amendments 112 and 113 are about strengthening the language about health inequalities. On that issue, we have had a helpful letter from the noble Earl, Lord Howe, dated 24 November, in which he sets out in detail some of the steps that will be taken, not least the creation of the Institute of Health Equity, to deal with health inequalities. My question is rather a big one but it boils down to the old problem of how one ensures that these worthy and excellent intentions are actually carried out.

The House will remember that new Section 13F of the 2006 Act proposed in Clause 20, which deals with the autonomy of clinical commissioning groups from the Commissioning Board and restricts the board’s actions in terms of having to bear that autonomy in mind, was put into a different set of considerations—the consideration of the whole of the responsibility of the Secretary of State and the responsibilities of the boards—under the headings of Clauses 4 and 10.

All of this means that we are still debating these issues without being clear about where responsibility for them ultimately lies. I do not propose to go over that ground again, but it is appropriate for this debate to notice that the whole set of duties that are laid out in detail—and to which this debate will undoubtedly add as it lays down further duties for clinical commissioning groups and the board as a whole—in a sense therefore depends upon the outcome of those discussions about the constitutional structure. That matters because we need to bear it in mind all the way through our consideration of the duties that are laid upon clinical commissioning groups.

What makes me, to be honest, even more concerned is that I recently read the discussion paper The NHS: Developing Commissioning Support, which was quite improperly, no doubt, leaked on the internet. My attention was drawn to it by a couple of doctors who had access to the internet. The paper sets out in detail the ultimate objective of moving towards a commercial market in the health service and sets it out under a considerable number of different headings. For example, there is a specific mention in this report that,

“Clinical commissioning groups will have a statutory freedom to secure the commissioning support from wherever they want”.

It goes on to say that the commissioning support should be given in a vibrant, commercial market. What worries me about all this is that I am not at all clear—and never have been in our long debate on health—about what the ultimate goal is. I suspect that we are discussing two things at the same time. One is the attempt to keep improving the existing NHS, sometimes by an extraordinary degree of micromanagement—from this House, I have to say. The other is the determination of many people in this House to ensure the safety and continuation of the NHS which is free at the point of need and which is available to people regardless of their ability to pay. Somewhere along the line and at some point, we really have to be clear what we are talking about. I do not know whether others taking part in this debate share my sense that we are walking in without knowing the constitutional responsibilities and quite where we are going.

I commend my two amendments. They both strengthen the words on equality of health outcomes. I congratulate the Government very much on establishing the Institute of Health Equity and carrying forward the detailed research we are now doing on lifestyles and many other things, which are important and which I am sure the whole House will applaud. However, I have to raise the big question about destinations. I hope that at some point before we abandon the Committee stage, we will have a clearer view about the Government’s ultimate destination: whether it is to retain an NHS; whether it is to make it more open to innovation and other contributions from the private sector, with which many of us would certainly not disagree; or whether the ultimate outcome is to move towards a commercial market system, this being essentially a transitional stage.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Baroness Thornton

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I would not disagree with the noble Baroness on that issue. I agree with her, but I am trying to make a different point, which is that I think we have been left with, by sheer good fortune, if you like, a much better starting point for serious integration than many other health systems. It relates also to Amendment 203A, which was tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hollins and Lady Finlay, about the role of competition, about which I am rather less confident than some others.

I shall mention two other findings from the report because it is a remarkable and impressive story. On the doctor/patient relationship, there was a question about how far patients felt that they had close relations with their doctors and the ability to speak to them and to discuss their cases with them. Once again, quite remarkably, the United Kingdom comes out second to Switzerland in the 11. To take a final and very surprising finding in this study, on medical, medication or lab test errors in the past two years, the figure for the United States was 22 per cent, for the Netherlands it was 20 per cent and for the United Kingdom it was 8 per cent. It is extraordinary that we so rarely blow our own trumpet in this country, and very occasionally, we should.

[Baroness Thornton]

The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, is right. It is a great report, and I have read it. Would she care to join me in speculating about why the department has not made it its headline story?

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I think the answer to that had probably better come from the department rather than from me, but I am consistently surprised by the failure, not of this Government but of Governments of the United Kingdom for a long time, to say what the real achievements of the NHS have been and to recognise that outside this country it is widely regarded as perhaps one of the most outstanding health services in the world. It is worth saying that from time to time because we have 1.2 million people employed in the NHS and they deserve a great deal of the credit for having maintained a high standard in the face of very considerable financial pressures, even in the past. We have always had among the lowest expenditures per patient in the 11 highly industrialised countries, with only a couple of countries—Australia and New Zealand —spending less than we do.

There are two points to this argument. First, we are in a much better place to integrate care than we seem to think we are because we have already clearly established relations of trust between doctors and patients, and between hospitals and doctors, to an extent that other countries clearly regard as enviable. Secondly, one has to ask why we suppose that competition is a better way to deal with healthcare than are integration and collaboration. There is one area where competition is clearly crucial, and I accept that. It is in innovation and in trying out new ideas. None of us would in any way be opposed to that happening. However, I would like to put it on the record that if we are going to move in the direction of collaboration and integration, we have a very strong base on which to do it and we have the makings of something very impressive and important. The makings of that appear to be stronger in this country than in most others.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Baroness Thornton

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I am not quite sure whether the amendment is before us or not, but I shall make a brief assumption that it is and then I will allow the noble Lord to decide whether to sustain or withdraw it.

As we all know, the noble Lord has made a very distinguished contribution to the whole issue of the status and well-being of children and it is fair that we should recognise that. In particular, he has gone to a great effort to underpin the importance of early education and such things as the Sure Start programme. I want to add two points. The first is that, as a former Secretary of State for education, I remember working very hard to try to persuade my colleagues in the educational world that there should be an emphasis on education in parenting.

It is perfectly true that the early stages of a child’s life are vital, but as the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has pointed out, research shows that the link between what a child becomes and its parental inheritance is very close indeed. One of the more disturbing pieces of recent research shows the close link between an abused child and an abuser. Many young people who are abusive parents are in fact the children of abusive parents. Tragically, this dreadful tradition can move on from generation to generation. I simply want to make the point that it is not just a case of Sure Start for the child, it is also a case of proper education and training for the parents.

I have often felt that we should try to link sex education with parental education to bring out above all the extraordinary responsibility that a human child is because it takes so long to grow up compared with the young of most other species. A human child is dependent for many years, and I believe that we should put more emphasis on that than we do. However, it is not fair to make the Department of Health the sole responsible power for addressing this difficult subject. It requires a degree of working between departments, including education and other departments. I simply want to put on the record before the Minister replies the importance of securing co-operation between the Department of Health and the Department for Education, and for that matter social care on this particular set of issues.

My last point is quite straightforward. One of the aspects of training children in parenthood is to allow them to see what it is like to care for a young child. Some teenagers at school will not necessarily have younger siblings. Long ago when I was the prisons Minister—I should have talked about this when the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, was in his place—I introduced a group of offenders, all young boys, to the task of helping in the care and support of children with Down’s syndrome. That relationship had an amazing effect on both parties. The young offenders suddenly realised that they were responsible for someone much younger than themselves who was dependent on them, while the Down’s syndrome children suddenly had older brothers who were devoted to them and to whom they could address their huge capacity for affection. There is a lot of room for bringing young people together with children and teaching them something more than we know now about what it is to be a parent and the huge responsibilities involved in that role.

[Baroness Thornton]

I should just say how pleased I am that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has brought his great experience and commitment to the children and the family into this debate. I urge him to remain in his place for the debate that we are going to have very soon on children.

Arrangement of Business

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Baroness Thornton

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, is it not reasonable that, for those of us who are anxious to take part in the business of the House, not least on this central and crucial Bill, we are entitled to express our views to the Chief Whip? We ask her to take into account the very substantial problems that many of us in this House are having with the rather late notice on the change of dates, which means that people who have a good deal to contribute will find it almost impossible to do so. It is not unreasonable that when the usual channels take their usual course, they take some notice of the position of other Members of this House.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, since I have been mentioned in this regard, perhaps I may say that I am only trying to be helpful. When asked if I would be available on 4 October, the truthful answer was that I would be—but I am also available on three days of the following week. I am prepared to be entirely flexible and put myself in the hands of the usual channels on this matter.