Health: Hepatitis C
Earl Howe Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Baroness Randerson
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of people infected with hepatitis C who remain undiagnosed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, to the end of 2009, the latest year for which complete data are currently available, a cumulative total of 79,165 laboratory diagnoses of hepatitis C had been reported to the Health Protection Agency. The HPA advises that the number of laboratory diagnoses made will be higher than this because of underreporting, but the number of undiagnosed individuals is not known.
Baroness Randerson
The Health Protection Agency refers to a very much higher number of people—possibly 250,000—being infected with hepatitis C. That is its estimate, and there are other estimates of up to 450,000. I very much welcome my noble friend’s detailed Answer, but since 1997 the number of cases of hepatitis C reported each year has almost trebled. The majority are still undiagnosed, and I ask that in future there is more systematic and proactive screening of prisoners in prison to ensure that we diagnose more cases.
Earl Howe
My noble friend is absolutely right that there is a range of estimates of both the incidence and the prevalence of hepatitis C. I could spend some time explaining why that is, but it is partly to do with the long incubation period of hepatitis C, the symptoms of which do not manifest themselves for many years. My noble friend is also right that prisons tend to be a repository of this condition. In recent years, the story there has been good. The provision of information for prisoners and prison staff on hepatitis C and other blood-borne viruses has increased. There has also been increased access to hepatitis C testing for prisoners. We have had improved access to treatment for prisoners with hepatitis C and to drug treatment generally, which is of course absolutely germane to this condition. I believe that the focus is there, but that there is more to do.
Lord Morris of Manchester
My Lords, can the Minister tell the House how many patients infected with hepatitis C by contaminated NHS blood have since died in consequence?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord will know that precise figures are not available for that group, but I hope he will also recognise that we have taken steps to improve the financial help available to these unfortunate victims of the contaminated blood disaster of the 1970s and 1980s.
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, does the Minister agree that under GMC rules on informed consent, it is not proper to take a sample of blood for another purpose and then to screen that blood for the presence of hepatitis without the consent of the individual? However, does he further agree that for research purposes or for epidemiological research, it is perfectly proper to screen large batches of blood samples taken for other purposes, such as epidemiological research, provided that the results are anonymised?
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, obviously there is no general screening programme for hepatitis, and we appreciate the severity of cases such as that involving contaminated blood, which has just been referred to, but can the Minister explain what an ordinary person should be looking for before submitting themselves for screening? It must be advantageous to have such conditions diagnosed early rather than late.
Earl Howe
My noble friend is absolutely right that early diagnosis is always a good thing for this condition as it is for many others. We know who the risk groups are, and therefore the important thing is to target screening and testing at those groups. Predominantly, the at-risk groups are injecting drug users or former injecting drug users; they account for well over 80 per cent of cases of hepatitis C. Those groups are the focus of our efforts in primary and community care, and especially in prisons.
Lord Patel
My Lords, does the Minister agree that some ethical issues might arise in the mass anonymous screening of blood samples if a treatment was available for the disease that was being screened?
Earl Howe
In the case of hepatitis C, treatments recommended by NICE are of course available that, if taken early enough, can dramatically affect the course of the disease. I think we are in danger of straying into legislative territory that is perhaps the occasion for a wider debate as to how, if at all, we might expand the scope of the Human Tissue Act so as to reach those cases that I think the noble Lord is referring to.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, we all welcomed the Government’s Statement in January announcing increased support for those with hepatitis C. Will the Minister please tell us what progress is being made to deliver the exception from means-testing of the new payments and the provision of prepayment prescription certificates, and which national charities are in receipt of the additional funding of £100,000 to support the victims of hepatitis C and their families?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the Caxton Foundation has been established to address the group of hepatitis C victims identified in the Government’s Statement earlier this year: that is, those victims of the contaminated blood disaster who went on to develop hepatitis C. I understand that the foundation will begin to make payments later this year that will include payments to those who are eligible for the free prescriptions service to which she referred.
Southern Cross
Earl Howe Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, I shall now repeat as a Statement the Answer given earlier today by my honourable friend the Minister for care services to an Urgent Question tabled in another place about the steps that the Government are taking regarding Southern Cross Healthcare. The Statement is as follows.
“The Government have made it very clear that the welfare of residents living in Southern Cross homes is paramount. We appreciate that recent events and media speculation have caused concern to residents in Southern Cross care homes and their relatives and families. I very much regret that. I would like to assure everybody that no one will find themselves homeless or without care. The Government will not stand by and let that happen.
Department of Health officials have been in frequent contact with Southern Cross’s senior management over the last three months and that will continue. We are engaged with the company, the landlords and lenders and are monitoring the situation closely. The Government are acting to ensure that all parties involved are working towards swift resolution, with a comprehensive plan for the future which must have the welfare of residents at its heart. It is for Southern Cross, its landlords and those with an interest in the business to put in place a plan that stabilises the business and ensures operational continuity of the care homes. That work is happening and we must let it continue. Let me be very clear: this is a commercial sector problem and we look to the commercial sector to solve it. All the business interests understand their responsibilities. The Government are also working closely with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, the Local Government Association, local authorities and the CQC to ensure that robust local arrangements are in place to address the consequences in the event that the company’s restructuring plan failed to put the business on a stable footing.
Yesterday, a meeting took place between Southern Cross, lenders and the landlords’ committee. They agreed to work together to deliver a consensual solution to the company’s current financial problems over the next four months. They also made clear that the continuity and quality of care to all 31,000 residents will be maintained and every resident will be well looked after. This is a welcome development and the Government are encouraged by this positive agreement by the main stakeholders. The exact details of the restructuring plan over the next four months will be set out over the next few days and the following weeks. The Government will continue to keep close contact with the process. I will keep the House informed.
Local authorities have a duty to provide care to anyone who has an urgent need for it. All parties are aware of their roles and responsibilities should that happen and will take decisive action to ensure that no resident is left homeless or without care. The statement released yesterday provides further reassurance that the continuity of care of the residents is at the centre of the consensual restructuring agreement”.
That concludes the Statement.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his comments and questions. He asked a number of the latter. First, he asked specifically about the HMRC. I asked that question myself of my officials. It is quite clear that any discussion with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has to be a matter for the company. HMRC makes its own judgments in any discussions with companies. It is a separate statutory body; it may not be lobbied by another government department, nor is it at liberty to discuss the detail of individual company tax affairs with anyone outside HMRC. So it is very much in the hands of the company if it so chooses to enter into the kinds of discussions to which the noble Lord alluded.
The noble Lord asked whether the LGA would be involved in the discussions over the company’s future. As is clear from the Statement, we regard the primary agents in this matter as being the company, its landlords and the lenders involved. They are the people on whose shoulders a restructuring plan depends. Nevertheless, he is right to suggest that the LGA is important in this context; it is involved with the discussions that we have had and will continue to have for some time—not only with the LGA, but with ADAS and the CQC, as well as the representatives of providers—to work through and define better the responsibilities of each party involved, so that if problems arise at a local level, either in this context or in any other similar context, the response will be appropriate. It is important to have that clarity of responsibility.
The noble Lord asked about the Southern Cross workforce. The key point here is the safety and well-being of the residents. We tasked the CQC to enter into discussions with Southern Cross when it announced redundancies the other day. The CQC’s role is to ensure that all care homes meet essential standards of quality and safety and it has confirmed that it will continue to require Southern Cross to demonstrate that all its homes are meeting these essential standards. Any failure to do so may result in enforcement action. I cannot go beyond that and comment on the prospects for the continued employment of the current workforce. All I would say is that the agreement reached yesterday will dispel a great deal of the uncertainty that they must have been feeling in recent days, because we now have the prospect of stability and certainty over the next few months as Southern Cross continues as a viable business with the support of its lenders and landlords.
The noble Lord moved on to suggest that it was the policies adopted by a previous Conservative Government in encouraging a diverse and plural market for care home provision that has brought us to this pass. I am slightly surprised to hear him say that because I think that one benefit of that policy has been a much greater array of choice open to individuals than there was before—and indeed a choice not just of location but of quality. To cite the problems of Southern Cross as a confounding factor to that is, I think, unfair. The problem with Southern Cross is not the quality of the provision of care but its business model.
I do not think that there has been any suggestion that the residents of Southern Cross homes have, as a generality, been badly looked after; rather, the issue is that the business model that the directors of Southern Cross adopted was unsustainable. We hope that the restructuring that is now apparently in prospect will address that and that the company can carry on giving the care that it has always done to its residents. Nevertheless, as we said last week when we had a Question in your Lordships' House on this topic, and in reply to the noble Lord’s comment about individuals being treated as a business commodity—if I may rephrase his question—that is of course a distasteful idea. To the extent that that has happened, we must acknowledge it. All I would say is that it has not affected the care that those residents have received. If it has disadvantaged anyone, it has been the shareholders.
The noble Lord suggested that because the Statement made it clear that we regard this as a commercial matter for the commercial organisations to solve, therefore this is not a health and social care issue. Again, that is a little unfair. The Government do not for one minute shirk their own responsibilities in this matter. We have been absolutely at the front in encouraging all parties to come together to reach this consensual agreement, to place the interests of the residents first and to put aside private interests and prejudices as much as possible. It is very encouraging that the statement issued yesterday did just that. There is consensus between the key parties that the interests of the residents are at the front of their minds. The restructuring is something that they are aiming to work through in as short a time as possible. I believe that that is cause for encouragement.
The noble Lord asked about the future and what might happen, not only in the case of Southern Cross but, I took him to mean, in the care sector generally. I am sure that as we go forward, if all goes well, we will see the kind of diverse market emerging in care home ownership that we have in domiciliary care where, as the noble Lord will be aware, there is a very diverse range of ownership by social enterprises, charities and private organisations of one kind or another that provide domiciliary care. There is scope to make the residential care home sector equally diverse over time. However, as we do that, we need to ensure that it is not just a diverse market but a stable one. I am the first to acknowledge that lessons will need to be learnt from this sorry episode over Southern Cross. If I have failed to answer any of the noble Lord’s questions, I shall certainly make up for that in writing.
Baroness Barker
My Lords, after 13 years of a Labour Government who were not in any way reluctant to diversify the residential care market, there is an even greater plurality of providers than there ever was before. One issue that has arisen out of this case is the capacity of the CQC to evaluate the stability and viability in the long term of a company that is owned by a private equity firm. That is a complex task that might challenge even the Financial Services Authority. Does the Minister agree that in order to reach the stable and viable market that he has suggested, there is a need to look at this in a much wider sense than just this case? Does he agree that the discussions that must inevitably follow the publication of the Dilnot inquiry in July should focus on the role of private equity-funded companies in the residential care market and, as he has also suggested, in the domiciliary care market?
Earl Howe
My noble friend raises an important issue. As she knows, care providers have to be able to demonstrate to the Care Quality Commission that they have the financial resources needed to continue to provide services of the required quality. We have embarked on a wide-ranging programme of reform for social care. We are currently considering the Law Commission’s recommendations for modernising social care law and, as my noble friend mentioned, the report of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support is imminent. There are many lessons that have to be learnt from the events of recent weeks. We want to reflect on them as part of our wider reform agenda for social care.
On private equity finance, I simply make my own observation to my noble friend: I do not think that private equity finance is at the root of the problems that we have been seeing but the business model, which is rather a different issue. It was the choices and decisions made by the management of Southern Cross that made the business fundamentally unsustainable. I do not see that as a reflection directly on private equity providers. We have been clear that we were going to take action to ensure that there was proper oversight of the market in social care. That is why the Health and Social Care Bill specifically allows us to extend to social care, if we chose to do so, the proper financial regulatory regime that we are putting in place for the NHS. However, I suggest that regulation is not the only solution; we need to approach this in a measured way, not least because there are complex negotiations under way. We need to look at social care reform as a whole, which is exactly what we have committed to doing.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, on the question of the business model that the Minister just referred to, does not this whole sorry saga reveal how completely out of touch with the world of reality were the main board and executive directors of Three Delta, who advised the Qatar Investment Authority to spend billions buying property in the healthcare sector on the back of inflated and totally unrealistic rent levels paid by companies such as Southern Cross? Were the Qataris made aware of the huge risk involved? What were the so-called great and the good like Sir Peter Middleton, Nick Land, Sir Christopher Howes and David Mellor—a former government Minister—doing when any estate agent in the commercial property sector could have told them that the commercial care property market was both overgeared and overpriced?
Finally, will Messrs Scott, Murphy, Sizer and Colvin, formerly directors of Southern Cross, be prosecuted for insider dealing in Southern Cross shares when they privately promoted the sale of shares in the months immediately prior to their profits warning and collapse in the share price? Is this whole affair not riddled with greed and stupidity?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I fear that I am unable to answer the noble Lord’s questions, for which I apologise, but I understand why he has asked them. If I have some concise answers that I can send him, I will certainly do so by way of a letter.
I think that the noble Lord and I agree that we are looking at a fundamentally unsound business model. As I understand it, it is a unique business model in the care home sector, where a deliberate decision was taken for the company not to own its own care homes but rather to pay the rent on them. The market clearly moved against it in more than one sense. The company’s problems are partly attributable to the occupancy levels of some of their care homes. Southern Cross occupancy levels have gone down, I understand, more than those of other care homes. It is not about fee levels; other providers of residential care are not in the same position as Southern Cross. I believe that Southern Cross’s problems relate to the rental agreements—the leases—that they entered into. It is those things that the restructuring aims to fix.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his Statement. I listened carefully to what he said about the need for clarity on where responsibility lay. He also stated that there were lessons to be learnt. Will he say when the Government will conclude their review of these lessons, and when and how they will make them public? With the imminent privatisation of the Royal Mail, which has a lot of property worth quite a lot of money, will the Minister say whether some lessons learnt in this exercise might be useful in the context of ensuring that we do not run into similar problems there?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I would love to be able to comment on the Royal Mail, but noble Lords will be sorry to hear that I have not received the necessary briefing. On the timescale of our review, as I indicated to my noble friend Lady Barker, there are a number of elements to our review of social care policy. One is the Dilnot report, which we are expecting at the beginning of July. Another is the Law Commission report. However, a third is undoubtedly the lessons learnt from this episode. It is fair to say that it would be rash of me to give the noble Lord a date on which we will conclude all three strands of that review. It is likely that we will be able to be more definite later on this summer.
Lord Clinton-Davis
If it becomes clear within a reasonable time that Southern Cross and others are unable to put the business on a stable footing, what will then happen, primarily to the residents but also to the workforce? Can the Minister suggest what he has in mind as a fallback position?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the Department of Health is being very clear with the company that we expect it to maintain service continuity and quality of care while the restructuring process is going on. As I have said, our principal concern is for the safety and well-being of the residents of the care homes that might be affected. The CQC will pay particular attention to any care homes where there is a concern that quality may be at risk or inadequate. We are continuing to talk to ADASS, the LGA and the CQC to ensure that contingency plans are in place which will allow for the continuation of care under any eventuality. If the noble Lord will forgive me, I would rather not be drawn into hypotheses as to what might happen if the restructuring does not take place. We must encourage the company to believe that that is the prime and sole option before it. If there is ever a question of a change in the arrangements for providing residential care to any resident of a Southern Cross care home, or indeed any other, the rights of those residents remain absolutely clear in law. The duties of local authorities are absolutely clear in law. I believe that all residents in Southern Cross’s homes can rest assured that local authorities are well seized of those duties and processes.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
My Lords, the Minister has reassured the House that he does not see Southern Cross as the first of many providers to go into crisis. Can he share with the House the advice that he has had to enable him to give us those assurances that Southern Cross is not just the first of a number of providers to go into crisis?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I cannot issue a government guarantee on the continuing business health of every single care home provider in the country; that would be extremely rash. Of course, we know that over the years some providers have gone out of business. What we are seeing in the country at the moment is much more of a trend towards looking after people in their own homes rather than in residential settings. At the same time, the market is doing the opposite because there are more and more elderly people requiring care of some kind. This industry is not going to disappear overnight or, indeed, at all. Over the indefinite future we will require a residential care home industry, particularly as the number of elderly continues to increase. The key will be to ensure that the quality of provision is maintained. Competition will undoubtedly remain, but it is a telling indicator of the current state of the market that there is an overprovision at present of about 50,000 care home places nationally. That perhaps is a sign that local authorities are successfully meeting the wishes and needs of their service users in providing care in the settings which most people want; namely, their own homes.
Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, what safeguards are being put into place so that this situation does not happen again in other care homes and possibly in hospitals?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I think I have already indicated that the Government are proactively engaged with all the key parties involved in this situation, not just Southern Cross but the LGA, ADASS, the CQC and others. The precise situation in which we find ourselves with Southern Cross is unlikely to arise again because my understanding is that the business model adopted by Southern Cross is unique. Nevertheless, every privately operated residential care home business will, no doubt, have its own level of business risk, whatever that may be—either slight or something rather less slight. However, the alternative that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, seemed to desire was a return to the state provision of care homes. The noble Lord is shaking his head, and I am glad of that, because I think neither his party when in government, nor certainly ours, would wish that on the public. I think that all of us believe in choice for the individual, and this is what the current market provides. Nevertheless, there are risks.
The noble Baroness asked about hospitals. To the extent that NHS care is delivered in independent settings, a business risk is inevitably associated with that. However, we are clear in the Health and Social Care Bill that there needs to be a system whereby essential services are protected for the benefit of patients. When the Bill reaches us, we will no doubt debate those provisions.
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
I am sure that the noble Earl will be assured that my noble friend did not imply or say what the noble Earl thought he said. It is really important for us to focus on the business side of this issue and the economics of how it is run. The noble Earl is absolutely right to say that there is no complaint at all—in fact, all the carers of residents in those homes are distressed because they may be moved from somewhere that has taken care of their people. It is important, therefore, that none of us loses sight of the real issue—the care of these people, which has been good. Otherwise, the home would be in a very different state and, God forbid, we would be having a very different discussion if the issue was the care of the residents rather than the economics of running the home.
How deeply is the Care Quality Commission involved in this? My own trust has been talking to the CQC because, as the noble Earl will know, there are knock-on effects for hospitals all around the country when those homes are under threat, and on what might happen to elderly people who would normally be discharged from hospitals into those homes. We should all please remember—I am sure that the noble Earl is remembering—that the patients really matter in this, and we should ensure that we get them into safe places where they are looked after. The economics of this are very important, and I am not in any way dismissing that, but we need to measure that up against the care that has been provided for those people in Southern Cross homes, and, I hope, will continue to be provided. The care is valued. It is about the market that goes on out there, and any of us would be foolish to suggest that there is an alternative.
Earl Howe
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, and I am also clear about the position of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. She is of course right. Our first concern should be for the safety and welfare of residents. That is why, as I said earlier, some time ago we asked the Care Quality Commission to engage in close discussion with Southern Cross when the news of the impending redundancies was made public. We did that precisely to ensure that standards would not be compromised. My understanding is that there are no concerns on that front. Southern Cross has, in that sense, behaved impeccably in ensuring that residents have not suffered, other than from the inevitable uncertainty that the publicity over this matter has generated. Going forward, the principles that the noble Baroness has articulated are absolutely right. However, she would agree with me—as I think she did—that questions need to be asked about the financial models adopted by care homes or, indeed, by any independent business providing public services.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Were we not told after Jon Manel of the BBC's exposure of what was going on in care homes in 2008 that lessons would be learnt and that there would be a review; and was not an inquiry set up by the department at the request of the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton? Were we not given assurances that that would not happen again? Is not the reality that these reviews and statements about lessons to be learnt all end up in the long grass, because this area of care is basically out of control?
Earl Howe
I do not agree with the noble Lord that this area of care is out of control. The situation that arose at the time to which the noble Lord refers was of quite a different nature from the one we are looking at at the moment. As I recall, it was about the quality of care delivered in particular care homes. We now have the CQC, which is responsible for policing quality of care across the NHS and social care. The previous Government put that arrangement in place. We are content with it. We think that the arrangements are robust. The CQC does very good work.
Of course, with the best will in the world, mistakes occur. One can easily point the finger at the CQC. As I said, in the case of Winterbourne View, that would be an easy but unfair thing to do. All that the CQC can be expected to do is to take a snapshot at any given moment of what it sees and hears. When I say that lessons need to be learnt, I reiterate to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that my counterpart in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is considering the lessons to be learnt about the business models that apply not just to the care home sector but generically where public services are provided.
NHS: Future Forum
Earl Howe Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, I shall now repeat a Statement that has been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health. The Statement is as follows:
“With permission, Mr Speaker, and further to the Written Ministerial Statement I laid in the House earlier today, I wish to make a statement on the Government’s response to the NHS Future Forum.
We established the independent Future Forum on 6 April, under the chairmanship of Professor Steve Field, to look again at our proposals on the modernisation of the NHS. Yesterday it published its report and recommendations. I would like to thank Professor Field and his 44 senior colleagues from across health and social care who have worked so hard these past eight weeks. I would also like to thank the more than 8,000 members of the public, health professionals, and representatives from over 250 stakeholder organisations who attended some 250 events across the country; also the tens of thousands who wrote to us with their views. I want also to thank the many officials in my department who supported this unprecedented engagement across the country.
I said two months ago that we would pause, listen, reflect and improve our plans. Our commitment to engage and improve the Bill has been genuine and has been rewarded with an independent, expert and immensely valuable report and recommendations from the NHS Future Forum. I can tell the House that we will ask the forum to continue its work, including looking at the implementation of proposals in areas including education and training and public health.
In his report, Professor Field set out clearly that the NHS must change if it is to respond to challenges and realise the opportunities of more preventative, personalised, integrated and effective care. It said that the principles of NHS modernisation were supported: to put patients at the heart of care; to focus on quality and outcomes for patients; and to give clinicians a central role in commissioning health services.
In the forum’s work, it set out to make proposals for improving the Bill, and its implementation; to provide reassurance and safeguards; and to recommend changes where needed. As Professor Field put it, the forum did this not to resist change, but to embrace it, guided by the values of the NHS and a relentless focus on the provision of high quality care and improved outcomes for patients.
We accept the NHS Future Forum’s core recommendations. We will make significant changes to implement those recommendations and, in some cases, offer further specific assurances which we know have been sought. There are many proposed changes and we will publish our more detailed response shortly. But I would now like to tell the House some of the main changes we will make.
The Bill will make clear that the Secretary of State will have a duty to promote a comprehensive health service, as in the 1946 Act, and be accountable for securing its provision and for the oversight of the national bodies charged with doing so. We will also place duties on the Secretary of State to maintain a system for professional education and training within the health service, and a duty to promote research.
One of the most vital areas of modernisation to get right is the commissioning of local services. For commissioning to be effective, it must draw upon a wide range of people when designing local services, including clinicians, patients and patient groups, carers and charities. We will amend the Bill so that the governing body of every clinical commissioning group will have at least two lay members—one focusing on public and patient involvement, the other overseeing key elements of governance, such as audit, remuneration and managing conflicts of interest.
While we should not centrally prescribe the make-up of the governing body, it will also need to include at least one registered nurse and one secondary care specialist doctor. To avoid any potential conflict of interest, neither should be employed by a local health provider. These governing bodies will meet in public and publish their minutes. The clinical commissioning groups will also need to publish details of all contracts they have with health service providers.
To support commissioning, the independent NHS commissioning board will host ‘clinical senates’, providing expert advice on the shape and fit of healthcare across a wider area of the country, and it will develop existing clinical networks, which will advise on how specific services, such as cancer, stroke or mental health, can be better designed to provide integrated, effective care. Building on this multi-professional involvement, clinical commissioning groups will have a duty to promote integrated health and social care around the needs of their users.
To encourage greater integration with social care and public health, the boundaries of clinical commissioning groups should not normally cross those of local authorities. If they do, clinical commissioning groups will need to demonstrate to the NHS commissioning board a clear rationale for doing so in terms of benefit to patients.
I have always said that I want there to be ‘no decision about me, without me’ for patients when it comes to their own care. The same goes for the design of local services, so we will further clarify the duties on the NHS commissioning board and clinical commissioning groups to involve patients, carers and the public. Commissioning groups will have to consult the public on their annual commissioning plans and involve them in any changes that would affect patient services.
One of the main ways that patients will influence the NHS will be through the exercise of informed choice. We will amend the Bill to strengthen and emphasise commissioners’ duty to promote patient choice. Choice of any qualified provider will be limited to those areas where there is a national or local tariff, ensuring that competition is based solely on quality. This tariff development, alongside a best-value approach to tendered services, will safeguard against cherry-picking.
Monitor’s core duty will be to protect and promote the interests of patients. We will remove its duty to promote competition as though that were an end in itself. Instead, it will be under a duty to support services integrated around the needs of patients and the continuous improvement of quality. It will have a power to tackle specific abuses and restrictions of competition that act against patients’ interests. Competition will be a means by which NHS commissioners are able to improve the quality of services for patients.
We will keep the existing competition rules introduced by the last Government—the Principles and Rules for Co-operation and Competition—and give them a firmer statutory underpinning. The Co-operation and Competition Panel, which oversees the rules, will transfer to Monitor and retain its distinct identity. And we will amend the Bill to make it illegal for the Secretary of State or regulator to encourage the growth of one type of provider over another. There must be a level playing field.
We will strengthen the role of health and well-being boards in local councils, making sure that they are involved throughout the commissioning process and that local health service plans are aligned with local health and well-being strategies.
In a number of areas, we will make the timetable for change more flexible to ensure that no one is forced to take on new responsibilities before they are ready, while enabling those who are ready to make faster progress.
If any of the remaining NHS trusts cannot meet foundation trust criteria by 2014, we will support them to achieve it subsequently. But all NHS trusts will be required to become foundation trusts as soon as clinically feasible, with an agreed deadline for each trust.
We will ensure a safe and robust transition for the education and training system. It is vital that change is introduced carefully and without creating instability, and we will take the time to get it right, as the Future Forum has recommended. During the transition, we will retain postgraduate deaneries and give them a clear home within the NHS family. On any qualified provider, its extension will be phased carefully to reflect and support the availability of choice for patients.
Strategic health authorities and primary care trusts will cease to exist in April 2013. By April 2013, all GP practices will be members of either a fully or partly authorised clinical commissioning group or one in shadow form. There will be no two-tier NHS. However, individual clinical commissioning groups will not be authorised to take over any part of the commissioning budget until they are ready to do so. GPs need not take managerial responsibility in a commissioning group if they do not want to. April 2013 will not be a ‘drop dead’ date for the new commissioners. Where a clinical commissioning group is not able to take on some or all aspects of commissioning, the local arms of the NHS commissioning board will commission on its behalf. Those groups keen to press on will not in any way be prevented from becoming fully authorised as soon as they are ready.
I also told the House on 4 April that we would secure proper scrutiny for any changes we made to the Bill. In order to do this, without trespassing on the House’s time to review the Bill as a whole at Report, we will ask the House to recommit the relevant parts of the Bill to a Public Bill Committee shortly.
Through the recommendations of the NHS Future Forum and our response we have demonstrated our willingness to listen and to improve our plans, to make big changes—not to abandon the principles of reform, which the Future Forum itself said were supported across the service, but to be clear that the NHS is too important and modernisation too vital for us not to be sure of getting the legislation right.
The service can adapt and improve as we modernise and change. But the legislation cannot be continuously changed. On the contrary, it must be an enduring structure and statement. So it must reflect our commitment to the NHS constitution and values. It must incorporate the safeguards and accountabilities which we require. It must protect and enhance patients’ rights and services, and it must be crystal clear about the duties and priorities which we will expect of all NHS bodies and in local government for the future.
Professor Field’s report says that it is time for the pause to end. Strengthened by the forum’s report and recommendations, we will now ask the House to re-engage with delivering the changes and the modernisation that the NHS needs. I commend this Statement to the House”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I start by paying tribute to him for the way in which he has facilitated the debate about the future of the NHS thus far across the House. The all-Peer seminars benefited hugely from the fact that his office ensured the input from senior department officials. I have to add that his noble friend Lady Northover attended every one of those seminars. They have continued and, I believe, have ensured a greater understanding of the Bill from which it can only benefit. Notwithstanding Nick Clegg waving about his list of changes and claiming all, I think we might find out as we move on how influential the Minister has been in bringing about changes to the Bill. However,
“there is more joy in heaven when one sinner repents”.
About a year ago the Minister gently chided me, when he launched the health White Paper, by saying:
“I hope that when the noble Baroness digests this White Paper, she will come to view it rather more favourably than she has indicated”.—[Official Report, 12/7/10; col. 535.]
On this occasion, lest the noble Earl misunderstands me, I will say that I welcome the findings of the Future Forum, although I think that we would both agree that it cannot possibly have covered all the important issues in the NHS in eight weeks. In the detailed response that accompanies the Statement, the Government have gone further than the Future Forum in their proposed changes to the Bill; they are very significant. I particularly welcome issues such as the commitment to the NHS constitution. However, it begs the question of whether we might need a whole new Bill, or no Bill at all, if we all now agree that evolution is better than revolution.
I will mention the process. In this House we are more familiar with the parliamentary process whereby you consult, legislate and implement—not the other way around, which is what seems to have happened here. However, the Future Forum was a device that I think everyone understood. There was a pressing political need to get the coalition Government—Nick Clegg, David Cameron and in particular Andrew Lansley—off the hook. I will say this only once, despite severe temptation; the uniformly fulsome and enthusiastic welcome from Nick Clegg and David Cameron for the White Paper and the Bill ring rather hollow today. However unworthy the motivation, the end of the pause means one very good outcome for which we should all be grateful—probably none more so than patients and staff—namely, that the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State will cease their endless visits to hospitals to prove how much they love the NHS.
The chairman of the Future Forum said that opposition to the Bill stemmed from “genuine fear and anxiety”. He went on to say that NHS staff feared for their jobs, and feared that their NHS was about to be broken up and—their word—“privatised”. Thank goodness the Future Forum had the wisdom to listen to what so many people have been saying for a year to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State: during the consultation period, after the Bill was published, with increasing volume during its passage in the Commons, and despite two very sensible Health Select Committee reports. Does the Minister think that the terrible mess that the Government have found themselves in could have been avoided, and have they learnt their lessons?
Since we are now promised significant changes, will the Minister confirm that there will be a new and proper impact assessment and a new set of Explanatory Notes, and that there will be consultation on the changes proposed through amendments before recommittal? Will there be a formal response to the well argued report of the Health Select Committee and its recommendations, not all of which agree with the Future Forum report? Most importantly in many ways, if there is to be a long period of enactment when the Bill is passed—and, as the Minister explained, no drop -dead moments—a very strong recommendation of the Future Forum report must be acted on; namely, the production of a timetabling and transition plan. This must be in place as soon as possible and must be robust. When does the Minister envisage that it will be published?
As the House would expect, since Part 3 is still in the Bill we will seek reassurances on competition, the composition of consortia, NICE, the minimum references to social care that are there, and, for example, the lack of references to mental health. We will pursue all these issues in due course. Will it be possible for the Minister to use his good offices to ask the Government to make time available for a longer debate in the House about these issues before we receive the Bill? When does the noble Earl think that we might start consideration of the Bill?
While the uncertainty continues, the NHS is going backwards. The Future Forum suggested—and we all know—that there is widespread demoralisation and even fear in the NHS. Good managers are being denigrated and made redundant, front-line staff are facing the sack and major projects and initiatives have been put on hold, as nobody knows what structures will be in place in the next few weeks, let alone the coming months. That is the result of the earlier rush, which can now be remedied by a robust transition plan.
It is to the credit of all the organisations—patient groups, carers, long-term conditions, medical and others—that have persisted in making their views known and whose views the Future Forum heard. During this period, my colleagues and I concentrated on asking people to look at and understand the Bill because we were confident that the more people understood this legislation, the less happy they would be about the threat to our NHS and to patients. We will be doing the same with the new Bill. We will look at it carefully in detail, and I will again be asking whether it meets the concerns that they and their organisations have raised. I say that because almost every single suggestion in the Future Forum report was put down as an amendment by my colleagues in the Commons in Standing Committee. I suggest to the Government that they might save a lot of time and trouble if they adopted all the other amendments that we put down that were not in the Future Forum. Honestly, what a way to conduct the reform of our most precious national asset. The lesson I take from the past year is this: it is very important not to suspend our critical faculties, even in the face of what seems a huge and, at the moment, welcome change. I am sure that this House will not do that. We have a very important job to do in making sense of this Bill and in ensuring that whatever the Government say today, their rhetoric is matched by the reality. We need to consider these suggested changes in this light. We have much work to do, and the sooner we start, the better.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful for the constructive and positive tone that the noble Baroness adopted in her response. I am grateful to her for her welcome of the Future Forum report, and I thank her for expressing appreciation for the seminars which my department is continuing to run. I can return the compliment in expressing my gratitude for the seminars that she has organised to inform Peers.
There is no disguising the fact that this is an extremely wide and detailed programme of modernisation. There is a great deal to absorb. It is important for noble Lords to understand as fully as possible what the proposals amount to before the Bill reaches your Lordships' House. She is right: they are significant changes. However, I would disagree with her about there being no need for a Bill. Since these changes are so extensive, it is appropriate that Parliament should have the opportunity of approving what is proposed for the National Health Service which, as the Statement said, is designed to be an enduring structure that successive Governments can back. Certainly, lessons have been learnt. I think that when we consulted on the White Paper last year, it was clear that there was general acceptance of the key principles that we set out in it, but when the Bill, which set out how we proposed to implement those principles, was published, the concerns bubbled to the surface, which was why we thought it right, and I still think it right, to have the listening exercise.
The noble Baroness asked me whether we would publish a new impact assessment and Explanatory Notes. We will be updating the impact assessment and Explanatory Notes to reflect the changes to the Bill. They will be published when the Bill is introduced in this House in accordance with normal protocol. She also asked me about timetabling. We want to ensure that the Bill is given sufficient scrutiny in both Houses. We hope that the stronger consensus for change that has been built as a result of the listening exercise will be reflected when both Houses consider timing issues and that the Bill will come to this House at the earliest appropriate moment. Currently, I cannot tell the noble Baroness when that will be. It is, of course, not for us to dictate to another place how it should manage its business. She also asked about the possibility of time being available for a health-related debate. The Leader of the House is sitting beside me, and I am sure he heard that request and that it will be discussed in the usual channels.
The noble Baroness rightly insisted on a robust transition plan, which I believe we have. She will have noticed from the Statement that we have adjusted quite significantly the pace at which these changes will be rolled out. I believe that those working in the health service will be reassured by that because in some quarters there was anxiety that we were going too fast for some to be sure that they would be ready in time.
The noble Baroness asked a number of questions, many of which will be the subject of a paper we plan to publish during the next week or so. The paper will set out more precisely how we plan to implement the changes proposed by the NHS Future Forum. I am not in a position to provide all the answers today but it is clear that, above all, the NHS needs certainty, which we can now give to those who work in it. However, I can say today that there is hardly anything in our proposals that does not represent a natural evolution from the policies and programmes pursued by the previous Government: that is, the development of the quality agenda initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Darzi; extending patient choice; developing the tariff; clinically led commissioning at primary care level, which is a natural extension of practice-based commissioning; completing the foundation trust programme; the continuation of the co-operation and competition panel established by the previous Government but now within the framework of a bespoke healthcare regulator; strengthening the patient voice by the evolution of links to HealthWatch; and augmenting the role of the CQC. None of that is wholly new: the difference is that for the first time we are setting all these things out in one coherent programme and not, as did the previous Government, in a piecemeal fashion.
I believe, and I hope, that we have the basis for broad consensus. We will see when the Bill reaches this House whether that belief is borne out. Not for a minute would I wish the noble Baroness to suspend her critical faculties, or for any other noble Lord to do that. I look forward to those debates in due course.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for repeating this important and welcome Statement. It reaffirms the coalition’s commitment to a reformed NHS, which is patient-centred, clinician-led and outcome-focused. Does he accept that the concerns, which are fully addressed in this Statement, were shared not alone on these Benches but by many Conservative colleagues, as well as patients, professionals and other stakeholders, and others in your Lordships’ House, as exemplified in the national debate instituted by the Government? Will he now confirm that, despite the anxieties that there have been, the duties and responsibilities of the Secretary of State will be reaffirmed in the Bill in the language used when our beloved NHS was established? Will he confirm that there will now be a level playing field and that private providers will not be advantaged against public providers, as was the case under the previous Labour Government? Will he further confirm that Monitor will be redesigned to be more than a mere economic utility regulator but will facilitate co-operation and integration, as well as competition on quality rather than on price?
Earl Howe
I am most grateful to my noble friend. He is right that the concerns that arose in relation to the Bill stemmed from many quarters—certainly from my own Benches and his but also from the wider public. I think we took on board those concerns almost as soon as the Bill was published. They were reflected in a large volume of correspondence, a high proportion of which I dealt with. I was keenly aware of the issues occupying people’s minds. I believe and hope that in the Future Forum’s report, and in our acceptance of that report, we have the basis for allaying most of those concerns.
My noble friend asked three questions. The first was around the duties of the Secretary of State. The Statement made clear that, as now, the Secretary of State will remain responsible for promoting a comprehensive health service. It has never been our intention to do anything else. Indeed, the Bill did not specify anything else. That will be underpinned by the new duties that the Bill already places on the Secretary of State around promoting quality improvement and reducing inequalities. We shall be setting out other duties on the Secretary of State to strengthen his accountability.
On private providers, the noble Lord is right. We are clear that private providers should not be advantaged over the NHS. Indeed, the amendments that we will make to the Bill will put that concern to rest, I hope, once and for all.
Monitor will have its duties rephrased. As the Statement also made clear, the duty to promote competition, which is now in the Bill, will be replaced by a different set of duties around patients, integration and the promotion of quality. There will be quite a different flavour to Monitor's duties.
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Earl, who is so widely respected on all sides the House, on the statesmanlike way in which he and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, have led discussions on the Bill in the past few weeks. I pay tribute also to the contribution of the Opposition. In all, we have had something like 25 seminars looking at the detail of the Bill. The developments that have been discussed and which Steve Field and his colleagues have put forward look as though they will produce major amendments to the Bill, which will be welcome on all sides of the House.
I have three specific questions. The one of greatest importance relates not only to the local clinical commissioning groups, but the clinical senates. We need to know a good deal more about them. Will they take on board some of the people who were previously employed by regional strategic authorities who are involved in the specialist commissioning of highly specialised services? That needs to be looked at carefully because of the unevenness in standards of specialised care throughout the country.
In relation to those clinical senates, will the role of universities be taken on board; not only those with medical schools but the ones that have responsibility for training other healthcare professionals? They should be thought of as having some kind of formal role in relation to those senates. I also suggest to the noble Earl in relation to clinical networks that, with the development of genomic medicine, rare diseases are becoming so important that we may need to have a clinical network for them because of the very expensive and rare orphan drugs that are being rapidly introduced for the treatment of these conditions.
Finally, the Bill as originally constructed did not deal in any depth with research or clinical education and training. The developments in this particular report on those two fields are very welcome. We look forward to having further details.
Earl Howe
I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Walton, as I always am, particularly for his welcome for the idea of clinical senates. They will provide the kind of multiprofessional advice on local commissioning plans that everybody has been calling for. The senates will be hosted by the NHS Commissioning Board. The detail is still to be worked out, but it is likely that they will be located regionally. They will be in prime position to do the very thing that the noble Lord seeks: to provide expert advice on good commissioning, not just for the treatment of everyday conditions, but for specialised services, which I know is of particular concern to noble Lords.
The noble Lord suggested that there should be a role for the universities, and that is a constructive idea that I will take away. As regards clinical networks, we are certainly of the view that they have proved their worth over the past few years and we are keen to see more of them created. I hope that that will be facilitated by the structures we are putting in place.
Lord Darzi of Denham
My Lords, I welcome the Statement from the noble Earl and also congratulate him on his leadership in getting us back on track. One of the commonest sayings about a good clinician, whether a doctor or nurse, is that they listen to a patient but also seek the opinion of others if dealing with a complicated case. In this instance, the noble Earl has done both.
I am very reassured that the language has changed. As the noble Earl said, quality will remain the organising principle of the NHS. I know and he knows that quality is what unites those who deliver healthcare. Quality is what the public and patients expect. I am also reassured by the concept of using competition when necessary. I strongly support competition, have always done so and work in an organisation that competes not only in the NHS in England but also globally. I acknowledge, too, that integration should also be used as a tool where possible. The listening exercise is not at the end. It should start from now. Where will the engagement exercise lead?
Finally, and more importantly, there is the management and leadership now required to drive these important sets of reforms at a time of austerity. We have heard a lot about management. It is an easy political target but the NHS needs better management rather than less. I am pleased to see that the Government are committing to retaining the best managers and to develop managerial skills. However, this commitment is distinctly lacking in specifics. More detail and action are required before I could confidently say that the importance of management has been grasped. I say this within the context of the age of austerity. We need leadership and management to drive this set of reforms. I strongly agree that we need reforms and they need to be continual reforms rather than destructive ones. On that note, I look forward to Second Reading.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, and would reassure him—I am sure that I do not need to—that our ambition is to carry through the agenda that he began when he was Minister of raising the quality of care throughout the NHS. He will see that we have defined quality in the Bill. It is the one part of the Bill that I do not think anybody has quibbled with. We have used his definition and I hope that no amendments will be tabled to change that.
The noble Lord said “competition when necessary” and I thoroughly agree with that. What we do not want to see is competition as an end in itself. It is never that. It can be there only to support better care of patients and buttress patient choice. If we believe in patient choice then we must inevitably believe in an element of competition. The key is making that competition work for patients properly, as we all would wish. Over the past few years we have seen how it can do that.
The listening exercise will not come to an end. We have asked the Future Forum to remain in being and to continue its work in a number of other areas. I am pleased to say that it has agreed to do so. Education and training will be one such area, public health another.
Finally, the noble Lord is absolutely right to direct our attention to the importance of good management. I think I read the other day in an article that he published that, if anything, the NHS has been over-administered and under-managed. I would agree with that analysis. We need good quality managers. I have never been one to denigrate managers. They are of the highest importance if we are to have a first-rate NHS. I hope to have further news on that front before long.
Lord Blackwell
My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend on his Statement which has certainly reassured me that the principles in the White Paper have been maintained. Can he elaborate a little more on the development of competition and choice to which he referred? The Statement says that Monitor’s core duty will be to protect and promote the interests of patients, not to promote competition as if it were an end in itself. Can I take it from what my noble friend has said that the Government continue to believe that competition and choice are key drivers of improving the interests of patients and quality in the health service?
Following on from that, on the Government’s commitment to extending patients’ choice of any qualified provider, which is reasserted in the Statement, how will the phasing of the introduction or further expansion of alternative providers evolve in a way that will give those alternative providers the confidence to make the investments necessary so that they can play their full part in providing quality services under the NHS?
Earl Howe
I thank my noble friend for raising this important topic. I cannot provide him with the kind of detailed replies that he seeks. Those should emerge over the next few days as we work through our response fully. But I can tell him that we will amend the Bill to strengthen and emphasise the commissioner’s duty to promote choice in line with the right in the NHS constitution for patients to make choices about their NHS care and to receive information to support those choices. We believe in patients’ choice and in competition, as I have already indicated, where that is appropriate. As recommended by the Future Forum, the Secretary of State’s mandate to the board will set clear expectations about offering patients choice.
We will maintain our commitment to extending patients’ choice of any qualified provider, but we will do this in a much more phased way. We will delay starting until April 2012, and the choice of any qualified provider will be limited to services covered by national or local tariff pricing to ensure that competition, where it occurs, is based on quality. We will focus on the services where patients say they want more choice—for example, starting with selected community services—rather than seeking blanket coverage. Of course, with some services such as A&E and critical care, any qualified provider will never be practicable or in patients’ interests.
I have already referred to the changes in the duties of Monitor, in its competition functions. The NHS Commissioning Board, in consultation with Monitor, will set out guidance on how choice and competition should be applied to particular services, guided by the mandate set by Ministers. That includes guidance on how services should be bundled or integrated.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Heart of England NHS foundation trust and as a consultant trainer in the NHS. Like other noble Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl for his stewardship of this matter in your Lordships' House. It is noticeable that the Government are continuing with their policy of placing £60 billion in the hands of commissioning consortia, which would be largely led by general practitioners. What I thought was missing from both the listening exercise and the Government’s general approach was any indication of how the standards in general practice are to be improved. A huge amount of power is to be given to general practice, yet we know that the general quality of GPs is very variable. In some parts of the country, it is very difficult to get access to GPs out of nine to five hours; in some parts, GPs have shown themselves completely unable to engage in demand management. Will these commissioning consortia be able to get to grips with poor quality GP performance?
Earl Howe
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raises an important issue. I agree with him that the quality of general practice has been extremely variable. We saw a report the other day, published by one of the think tanks, which said exactly that. We have some very good GPs, but we have some who, frankly, are less than the standard that we would want and expect in primary care.
We are doing a lot of work to roll out leadership programmes for general practitioners. The National Leadership Council is working with GPs to agree the skills required for commissioning and will assist GPs in developing these skills as appropriate. The NHS institute is also doing some good work in this area and we will shortly be able to provide a bit more detail on how we can develop leadership, regionally and nationwide.
The noble Lord’s question runs rather wider than that, being about the quality of care delivered by GPs. In rolling out the outcomes framework and the commissioning outcomes framework, and the transparency that goes with that, it will become rapidly apparent which GPs require more support. I have no doubt that the consortia or, as we are now calling them, clinical commissioning groups will see it as being in their interests to ensure that the poorer performers are brought up to the standard of the best.
Baroness Hollins
My Lords, I commend the Government on the depth and breadth of the consultation that has taken place. I particularly welcome the new focus for Monitor on integration and the proposed coterminosity of the clinical commissioning groups with local authorities, which is particularly important in the case of commissioning integrated mental health and learning disability services. Does the Minister agree that the changes now proposed can be expected to meet better the needs of people with serious mental illness, learning disabilities and other complex needs than the Bill as originally published, and that the focus on health inequalities will allow the Secretary of State to monitor reductions in them for those vulnerable groups?
Earl Howe
I am very glad that the noble Baroness, with her considerable expertise, raised the important subject of serious mental illness and the needs of those who are particularly disadvantaged. She is right: we now have a much better way forward in commissioning services for those particularly difficult-to-care-for groups, if I may put it that way. How services will be commissioned for those with special needs and serious mental illness will, I think, emerge as we go forward. However, in my own mind I can see that local authorities and consortia may well decide to commission services jointly. There will be the means to do that through pooled budgets and shared arrangements. We will ensure that the quality premium, the details of which are still being worked through, genuinely rewards the ironing-out of health inequalities. We are absolutely clear that one of our goals is to address health inequalities at every level, and that includes in mental health.
Health: Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies
Earl Howe Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Countess of Mar
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their proposals for continuing research into human and animal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, the Government continue to invest considerable funds in this research. I am pleased to note that the risk from BSE has declined significantly, and that cases of variant CJD peaked in 1999 and have declined ever since. The Government intend to continue to fund this research in order to ensure that policies are based on the best possible science and that there is evidence of efficacy, safety and cost-benefit for any measures implemented.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for that encouraging reply, because there have been rumours that the TSE research by the Health Protection Agency at Porton Down was to be “downsized”, as they say. Does the noble Earl agree that it is very important that we retain our knowledge acquired since the 1950s, when researchers were looking at scrapie, and that it is rather dangerous to put all our eggs in one basket? We ought to encourage lots of researchers to keep up to date, because these little prions seem to have naughty ways. What is happening to the archives for TSE conditions, which really ought to be called neurodegenerative diseases?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the Government are committed to continuing research in TSEs. Many fundamental questions remain unanswered and the research is, by its nature, long term. Considerable funding is provided by a number of bodies—not only the Department of Health, but the Medical Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Defra and the Food Standards Agency. The total funding last year was in excess of £20 million, and I should add that the DoH funding is ring-fenced. That funding to key institutions ensures that expertise is maintained and continued in the UK.
As for the archive of research data, I agree with the noble Countess. The Government are committed to this research, as I have mentioned, and to surveillance, so our data and resources will remain accessible through peer-review publication systems for sharing material and through continuing liaison with the research community.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
In making decisions about funding, do the Government recognise that the research into prions and TSEs may be only the tip of the iceberg, and that prions may be implicated in a whole range of other protein-folding abnormalities, including Alzheimer’s and amyloid disease? In asking that question, I must declare an interest, because research in the field is carried out in my own university, Cardiff University.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am aware of emerging findings in that sense. We welcome, of course, any significant findings from research, and my department has indeed part-funded some of the studies that the noble Baroness may have been referring to. Future funding applications for new studies will be considered, as they always are, on a case-by-case basis. These decisions are dependent on, among other things, existing research in progress and the availability of funding. However, this is an interesting area.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, does the Minister agree that this country is a world leader in research into spongiform encephalopathies and the role of prions generally? Nevertheless, what we know about this area remains a great deal less than what we do not know. In those circumstances, will he answer what I think was behind the noble Countess’s original Question? Is the amount of money devoted to funding this research continuing at the same level, or is it actually being reduced?
Earl Howe
My noble friend asks a very good question. Over 20-odd years, we in this country have invested almost £0.5 billion in research into TSEs. That is a significant amount of money. The total amount is declining, but that is because in the early days it was important to invest in research to ascertain the pathogenesis of this condition in cattle in particular. We are much further forward in understanding how this disease develops in cattle. Nevertheless, as I indicated to the noble Countess, important questions remain unanswered, and I think we will continue to see this research funded well into the future.
Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, what is happening about the P-Capt filter for prions? Are we not lagging behind Ireland and China in this research?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the noble Baroness will know that the independent Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs—SaBTO—has advised that there is evidence that a particular filter can reduce potential infectivity in a unit of red blood cells. It has recommended the introduction of filtered blood to those born since 1 January 1996, subject to a satisfactory clinical trial to assess safety. We are undertaking an evaluation of the costs, benefits and impacts to inform a decision on whether to implement that recommendation, and we are awaiting the results of clinical trials, which are expected in early 2012.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, following on from the noble Countess’s Question and linked to the need for continuing research, can the Minister assure the House that the scientific teams at the HPA and elsewhere will be kept together when the HPA has been broken up, and that during the period of establishing the independent health research agency the work will not be interrupted?
Earl Howe
My Lords, we are keen to see a smooth transition in the creation of Public Health England, which will include the current HPA. The expertise in prion research in this country is largely independent of the HPA. There is expertise particularly in Edinburgh and in the national prion unit in London, but her point is well made.
Contracting Out (Local Authorities Social Services Functions) (England) Order 2011
Earl Howe Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, the purpose of the order is to allow local authorities taking part in two pilot programmes to contract to outside organisations certain adult social services functions conferred on them by a variety of legal provisions. The pilots are, first, adult social work practices pilots and, secondly, right to control pilots. In short, the SWP pilots will test various models of social worker-led organisations undertaking adult social care functions for which local authorities are currently statutorily responsible. The right to control pilots will test the exercise of disabled people’s right to manage the state support they receive to live their daily lives. I will explain each pilot programme in greater detail as I go along.
The Government’s vision for adult social care set out a new agenda for adult social care based on a shift of power away from the state to the citizen by putting people, personalised services and outcomes centre stage. We are committed to the devolution of decision-making close to those who are responsible for the service delivered and, wherever possible, into the hands of those who are the service beneficiaries. This is an integral component of our wider personalisation agenda. We also want to ensure that individuals, carers, families and communities work together with local services, balancing family and community action with state support. Again, this is an integral component of our big society vision.
Since 2008, the Department for Education has funded SWP pilots to deliver services for children and young people in care. The pilots have seen the creation of independent, social worker-led organisations, including social workers moving out of public sector employment to form their own employee-owned social enterprises. The pilots also co-ordinate and monitor services provided to the children and young people in the SWP. They are independent of the local authority, but work closely with it and in partnership with other providers. The local authority pays the SWPs for the services provided.
Last November, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced that the Government wanted to test this concept in the adult social care sector, with pilots running for two years starting this summer. The emerging evidence from the Department for Education pilots strongly suggests that both clients and staff will benefit from service delivery by SWPs. That is why we are giving local authorities this opportunity to test the potential benefits of the SWP model and adopt a completely innovative approach to delivering services for adults and their carers.
We want not only to improve the experiences and outcomes for people in vulnerable circumstances, but also to empower social workers to do their jobs effectively, and we want to reduce the unnecessary bureaucracy that so often gets in the way. The programme will bring people who need health and care support closer to those who provide the services they need by reducing bureaucracy and encouraging innovation and personalised services. It will also give social workers the freedom to run their own organisations in the way they want within the constraints of their contract with the local authority. Evidence shows that staff working in employee-owned organisations have greater job satisfaction, leading to lower staff turnover and capacity for greater innovation.
SWPs will discharge the functions of the local authority in providing adult social care services and be responsible for providing the support to people receiving services from the SWP to achieve better experiences and better outcomes. They will also be responsible for undertaking delegated social work functions, managing day-to-day support, co-ordinating and monitoring service provision, and of course this will differ between the pilot sites. The local authority will keep its strategic and corporate responsibilities and will manage the contract and partnership with the SWP. I will speak a little later about concerns that noble Lords may have about possible risks associated with the delegation of these functions.
The SWP pilots will give local authorities a unique opportunity to test the potential benefits of various models and to adopt innovative approaches to delivering services for adults and their carers. The Department of Health is providing funding in the region of £1 million to help the pilots get up and running and to provide initial support. The pilots are an opportunity to test different models to see what works well and what does not, and they will be evaluated fully both during and at the end of the two-year period.
Primary legislation specifically allowed councils taking part in the Department for Education pilot programme to delegate their statutory functions in relation to looked-after children to SWPs. There is no equivalent legislation to allow the delegation of adult social care functions. However, the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 allows the making of orders allowing such delegation, and that is why we are seeking to introduce the order under discussion today.
The right to control, introduced by the previous Government in the Welfare Reform Act 2009, gives disabled adults greater choice and control over certain state support they receive to go about their daily lives. The right is based on the principle that disabled people are the experts in their own lives and they can decide what support they need and how it should be delivered. It is essentially a variant relating solely to disabled people within the general concept of personalisation.
The right is being tested in eight local authorities in England. These trailblazers, funded by the Office for Disability Issues, will evaluate the best ways to implement the right and will be used to inform decisions about whether and how to roll out the right more widely. Disabled people accessing the right to control will have a right to be told how much money they are eligible to receive for their support. They will be able to choose, in consultation with the public authority delivering the funding stream, how that money is used to meet agreed outcomes. They will be able to choose different degrees of control over their support.
One local authority has asked us whether it could test the delegation of its statutory duty to review social care assessments to third parties such as user-led organisations. As part of their vision for adult social care, the Government have stated their expectation that by April 2013 councils will provide personal budgets for everyone eligible for ongoing social care, preferably as a direct payment. Evidence shows that people who have their circumstances reviewed by fellow service users under appropriate supervision are far more likely to have their care and support needs met to their satisfaction and to request direct payment of their personal budgets to enable them to make their own support arrangements. We were therefore happy to agree to the request and the order allows delegation of the assessment functions under Section 47 of the NHS and Community Care Act 1990, which is also available to the councils piloting SWPs.
I said earlier that I would address concerns that noble Lords might have about the powers provided by the order. I fully understand how the delegation of council functions to outside bodies might raise concerns about potential risks to service users. It is always a balancing act when people are given the freedom to try new ways of doing things with the aim of improving other people’s quality of life. On the one hand, might service users be exposed to unnecessary risks, while on the other, might they not benefit from being able to make more decisions for themselves? Functions in social work practices have to be carried out by or under the supervision of a registered social worker or, in the case of right to control, by a person with requisite competencies or qualifications. I should like to assure noble Lords that accountability for the care delivered to vulnerable people will not change. Each local authority will retain overall responsibility for the services delivered by the SWP it contracts to, just as it does in relation to other local services. In this respect, the contract between the local authority and the SWP will be critical. We expect councils to monitor closely the outcomes of the practices, identifying issues early and providing support, while allowing them the scope to innovate and make decisions about the best packages of support and services for their population. Any potential risks will, of course, be reflected in any recommendations coming out of the separate evaluations.
In conclusion, we see this order as an important marker of progress in the developing world of personalisation. On the back of persistent requests from within the sector for greater freedom of choice and control for both staff and service users, this order has the support of councils and their representatives, as well as service users and their carers. It will enable the release of new partnerships and new ways of working to the benefit of individuals and their communities as a whole. I commend the order to the House.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the order and explaining its purpose so well. It is one of those orders the name of which belies its importance and its comprehensibility. As the Minister explained, the order is similar to one concerning children’s services from some years ago. Its purpose is designed to pilot flexibility at local authority level and test innovative approaches to delivering services to adults and their carers. As it is designed to foster new ways of delivering care on the ground with the caring and cared-for—in other words, user-led services—we would all agree that it is a good thing.
The meat of the order is in Article 3(2). Most of my questions centre on the practical details of delivery and how to ensure the safety of the adults concerned. The Minister has addressed some of those already. The noble Earl said that one local authority in the pilot involved the right to control. I wonder which authority that is, which seven authorities have been chosen and how they were chosen.
I am interested in the right to control. I should be grateful if the Minister could explain in more detail what the interface between the trailblazers funded by the ODI is. What benefits could there be to using those powers with the right to control, which is being explained in this order? I am not quite clear on how those would work. How will continued support and resources for co-production with disabled service users—an essential component of successful delivery of right to control—be maintained if there is a marriage between the two regimes?
How will the local authority authorise the third party to undertake social services functions? What criteria will they use, given that no guidance is to be made available with this order? Perhaps the Minister could paint us a picture or give us an example of that.
I should be grateful if the Minister could untangle the approved provider and independent mental capacity advocate by explaining who will be doing what under this proposed regime. Given that social work is regulated, as the Minister explained, can he confirm that that same framework will apply under this order? Can he confirm who—I assume it will be the local authority—will approve the individuals, businesses, charities and social enterprises that participate to ensure that their practice is of the highest standard when they deal with this most vulnerable sector of the community? If things are not working out properly for the person in receipt of care under this order, who would they go to and how would they do that?
Finally, if the person who is undertaking the functions under this order is not a registered social worker, what check will there be on their qualifications to carry out the functions required? I should be grateful if the Minister could explain who is undertaking the monitoring and reporting, and how long it will take. What does the Minister envisage the next steps would then be?
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
My Lords, I wish to pursue a matter that has already been discussed and emphasise a couple of concerns that have been raised, which I share. My noble friend referred to the treatment offered by a private consortium being threatened by the financial situation, as has just occurred. If we allow the contracting out to occur—I do not disagree with that—how can we ensure that that does not happen and that the treatment is safeguarded? A couple of noble Lords have asked how the assessment and monitoring will take place. As my noble friend Lord Beecham said, it seems that the trailblazers will also monitor the provision. That might be a bit dubious as their judgment will obviously be biased by their experiences. My noble friend Lady Thornton asked who these trailblazing local authorities are. I should be interested to know that, too.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am very grateful to noble Lords who have spoken, particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her broad welcome of the order. A great number of questions have been asked. I shall probably not be able to answer them all but I shall be happy to write to noble Lords with the detailed answers. However, I will attempt to cover as much ground as I can.
The right to control trailblazer that has requested this facility is Essex County Council. The social work practice sites are Birmingham City Council, the London Borough of Lambeth, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, North East Lincolnshire Care Trust, Shropshire County Council, Suffolk County Council and Surrey County Council.
I was asked how the SWP pilots would be put in place. The local authority will support the set-up of the SWP and the transition of people to the SWP. Once in place, the SWP will use its income under the contract with the local authority to provide services and improve the experience and outcomes of people in the SWP. As I said, the local authority will then manage the contract, monitor performance and manage the relationship as a whole. The local authority will review the contract with the SWP periodically to set new outcome targets and adjust payments. The Department of Health would expect these reviews to occur annually. In answer to my noble friend Lord Lee as to who will conduct the eventual evaluation, the workforce unit at King’s College, London, will do that. The final report will be an independent evaluation and will be published after the two-year period.
Although the local authority will remain liable for the performance of functions undertaken by the SWP, the authority will be able to sue for any breach of contract. It will work closely with the local authority and each local authority should decide what decisions it wishes the SWP to refer to it for agreement, so everything hinges on the contract. How will the outcomes of the SWP be managed? The local authority needs to maintain a close relationship with the SWP, as I have said, but it also needs to allow the SWP scope to innovate and make decisions about the best packages of support and services for the people involved—the service users—and how to provide these, so there is a delicate balance to be struck here. The department would expect the local authority to monitor outcomes, identify issues early and provide support, while allowing the SWP sufficient autonomy to decide how best to meet the needs of the people with whom it works.
The transfer process will be managed between each local authority and SWP. Where transfers take place, it is for the local authority and SWP to agree as part of their contract clear and transparent criteria for deciding who should transfer. It would be for local authorities to decide where social workers could be most effectively deployed. Ideally, SWPs will provide out-of-hours support directly to ensure continuity of services, but if the SWP is small, and particularly while it is getting started, it could choose to purchase out-of-hours support from the local authority.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked how these contracts will operate if there is no guidance. I hope that what I have already said about the importance of the contract has answered that. The contract that each local authority has with an SWP will specify the scope and feasibility of operation of each SWP.
My noble friend Lord Lee asked whether the terms and conditions being contracted out are comparable to current conditions. That would depend on the individual SWP and the individual local authority. There will be flexibility here. We are encouraging diversity so that we can find out from different models what works best.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked how the SWP would link with the approved provider for independent mental capacity advocates. The SWP would have access to whatever independent mental capacity advocate services exist locally. I think that there will be no bar to that. She also referred to the very important issue of safeguarding and how that would be ensured. Any body that is carrying out regulated activities in adult social care must be registered with the CQC. We are working with the seven councils to establish which sites are carrying out regulated activities. It is likely that most will need to be registered with the CQC, but the pilots vary greatly. They may therefore be subject to different registration requirements. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of councils to ensure that SWPs, if applicable, are registered individually with the CQC. Organisations registered with the CQC are required by regulations to carry out CRB checks on staff who have contact with patients or service users. Keeping patients and service users safe involves providing training, regular supervision and development and feedback from patients, service users and relatives. It will be for the councils and the SWPs to ensure that CRB checks are carried out as appropriate. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked whether the overview and scrutiny committees would have a role here. I see every reason why they should take an interest in what is happening. No doubt the message will go out that they should be encouraged to pay particular attention to these pilots.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wall, asked how we can ensure that SWPs do not go down the same path as providers such as Southern Cross. We do not, of course, yet know the final models of the SWP pilots and whether there is likely to be much, if any, private sector involvement. Local authorities can decide what they put in their contracts with the SWP pilots to ensure that those risks are mitigated.
Disabled people taking part in the right to control trailblazers will have a legal right to be told how much support they are eligible to receive, and to decide and agree with the public body the outcomes they want to achieve, based on the objectives of the funding streams they access. They will have a right to choice and control over the support they receive, and be able to choose how they receive the support.
Some aspects of the right to control process, such as the extent to which administrative processes are aligned, will be subject to some flexibility and may be different in each trailblazer. However, the broad framework of how the right to control will be tested is already agreed. Disabled people accessing the right to control will be told how much money they are eligible to receive for their support. They will be able to choose, in consultation with the public authority delivering the funding stream, how that money is used to meet agreed outcomes. I should say for the information of noble Lords that the seven trailblazing local authorities are Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, Sheffield City Council, Essex County Council, Greater Manchester, Leicester City Council, the London Borough of Barnet, the London Borough of Newham and Surrey County Council.
I was asked whether the trailblazers will be consulting with service users. The answer is yes—the evaluation will include consultation with service users.
A number of other issues were raised in the debate and I shall cover just one before I conclude. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked whether direct payments were prohibited from buying council services in this context. There are no plans to change current arrangements and, indeed, the Law Commission, in its recent report on social care, did not recommend a change in this respect.
Once again, I am grateful to noble Lords for their pertinent questions and comments. As I mentioned at the beginning, I shall endeavour to respond to those questions that I have not covered in my reply.
Motion agreed.
Winterbourne View
Earl Howe Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Baroness Hollins
My Lords, I declare an interest as a psychiatrist who has spent much of the last 30 years working with people with learning disabilities who have similar needs to those of the subjects of the shocking “Panorama” programme. I am also the carer of an adult man who has a learning disability and whose behaviour at times challenges those who support him. I have also been a policy adviser on learning disability to the Department of Health on two occasions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, the safety and quality of care of those with learning disabilities are of the highest importance. We will discuss the terms of reference for the serious case review with South Gloucestershire Council. We want to ensure that the terms of reference for all of the reviews by the local authority, the strategic health authorities and the Care Quality Commission will give us the evidence that we need to answer the serious questions raised by the events at Winterbourne View. We have asked Mark Goldring, the chief executive of Mencap, to work closely with us in reviewing the evidence.
Baroness Hollins
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. The national picture needs to be thought about. This matter is not happening just in south Gloucestershire. I understand that there may be as many as 150 private hospitals. I consider that to be unacceptable given the three decades of work to close NHS long-stay hospitals, which was finally achieved just two years ago. Will the Minister consider reversing the decision to end the employment of the national director for learning disabilities, who, as a policy adviser to the department, could have responsibility for overseeing the implementation of government guidance? The Mansell report gives guidance on how to manage and support people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour in the community, rather than exporting them a long way from home to private hospitals.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness. She raises some important issues. I am aware that the chief executive designate of the National Health Service commissioning board and the current chief executive of the National Health Service, David Nicholson, will be looking at the whole question of national clinical directors and leadership in clinical care in the coming months.
The noble Baroness is right about care in the community. That has been the direction of travel under the previous Government, as it is now. She will know that many Winterbourne View residents were sectioned under the Mental Health Act and had challenging behaviour, an area I know she has experience of. I believe that privately provided care can be trusted; if the commissioning is right, if regulation is right and if the arrangements for oversight are right, it is not intrinsically less likely that privately provided care will be delivered at the right levels of quality.
Baroness Thornton
I am seeking assurance from the Minister that there will be a wide-ranging and independent review of this matter, held in public, that will shine a light on what happened at Winterbourne View and allow the wider lessons to be learnt. We need to know whether the CQC’s failure to monitor the treatment of residents was due to the fact that there was a shortage of CQC staff. Does the CQC have sufficient powers to act in this case and, if so, is it using its powers adequately? Could the Minister also comment on the wisdom of placing more regulatory tasks with the CQC, as the Government are proposing in the process of reorganisation? Surely we need to see that the CQC is carrying out its current functions adequately.
Earl Howe
My Lords, first, there is a criminal investigation under way and it would not be appropriate to launch an inquiry, even if we were minded to do so. As the noble Baroness knows, the CQC has launched its own internal investigation. It has admitted that there were failings in its processes. South Gloucestershire Council will lead an independently chaired serious case review, as has been mentioned, involving all agencies, which will look at the lessons to be learnt. The strategic health authorities involved have instigated a serious untoward incident investigation. The department will, after these reviews have been concluded, examine all the evidence and report to Parliament.
We want to understand not only the immediate facts and why things went wrong at Winterbourne View but also whether there are more systemic weaknesses in the arrangements for looking after people with learning disabilities and who exhibit seriously challenging behaviour. It is very easy to make the CQC into a scapegoat. It is difficult to ask of the CQC that it polices every room in every hospital at every hour of the day. We rely on the CQC and have been supportive of it. It does much good work and clearly it will want to review its own processes as part of this.
Baroness Barker
Does the Minister agree that when this abuse was taking place, a number of professionals, including nurses and doctors, must have gone into that establishment and that these professional bodies should start to conduct their own inquiries into what their staff were doing in there at the time? Secondly, a bad provider of care has everything to fear from an unannounced visit, while a good provider of care has nothing to fear. Does the Minister agree that as a temporary measure the CQC could consider conducting only unannounced visits in the foreseeable future?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. My understanding is that all patients at Winterbourne View have been regularly reviewed by a multidisciplinary clinical team in the past six months on behalf of the primary care trust that commissioned their care, and most of them in the past three months. I am sure she is right to say that those who have conducted such reviews should examine their processes and my understanding is that that is exactly what will happen.
We have endorsed the CQC’s proposal to launch a programme of risk-based and random unannounced inspections of a sample of the 150 hospitals providing care for people with learning disabilities. They will work in conjunction with local government improvement and development, ADAS, Mencap and with experts with experience of this programme. The spirit of my noble friend’s question is amply addressed in the programme.
Lord Laming
Will the Minister encourage the Government to reinforce messages about managerial accountability wherever vulnerable people are being cared for and about the fact that the greater the degree of vulnerability, the greater that accountability must be held by the managers of the service?
Earl Howe
The noble Lord is quite right. There has clearly been a serious failing in management here. We are looking at that urgently and, no doubt, important lessons will be learnt. All agencies have acted immediately on being alerted to the situation by the “Panorama” team and, as I have mentioned, appropriate inquiries are under way.
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
I agree with the Minister about the response around the Care Quality Commission. When such a result as this comes out, the undermining is quite damaging right across the whole spectrum of its work. In hospital trusts and everywhere else, the CQC’s inspection and report are held in great esteem if they are good and are very worrying if they are not. I wonder whether that is denigrated by this unfortunate incident and this awful opportunity that it has had and missed.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I take the noble Baroness’s point. It is very easy to blame the CQC whereas we should in fact first point the finger at those who perpetrated these awful acts and at the management of the hospital. There are a number of other agents involved besides the regulator. We are committed to developing the role of the Care Quality Commission to make it a more effective regulator of health services in England. Those efforts can be supplemented by the role of HealthWatch, which she will know we proposed in the Bill before the other place to strengthen the arrangements for the patient and public voice. I am sure that there is more that we are able to do, but it is important that we learn the facts first before pointing the finger at the regulator or anybody else.
Health: Multiple Sclerosis
Earl Howe Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, the information requested is not collected centrally. In England, it is the responsibility of local health bodies to make decisions on the number of multiple sclerosis nurse posts and for local providers to ensure that they have a workforce skilled to deliver these services.
Lord Dubs
Does the Minister agree that the majority of patients suffering from MS do not have access to an MS nurse and that the absence of an MS nurse makes it very hard for patients to live independently? Does he further agree that the absence of an MS nurse puts enormously more pressure on consultants and GPs?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the Government recognise the very valuable contribution made by nurse specialists. It remains our view that local providers should have the freedom to determine their own workforce based on clinical need as they assess it. The commissioning consortia that will be in place subject to the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill and led by clinicians will recognise that nurse specialists have an essential role in improving outcomes and experiences for patients. That is part of the key to ensuring that these valuable posts remain in place.
Lord Walton of Detchant
Is the Minister aware that specialist nurses play an increasingly important role in the care not only of patients with MS but of patients with many other neurological diseases, including Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy? Is he aware also of recent reports to the effect that some such specialist nurses, even a few funded by charities, have been required by employing authorities to undertake general nursing care to the detriment of the specialist care that they should be offering such patients? Will he take action to prevent that?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am aware of those reports. We have received concerns from most, if not all, of the neurological patient groups, as the noble Lord mentioned. He might like to know, however, that to help trusts develop specialist nursing roles, the department published some time ago a guidance document, Long Term Neurological Conditions: A Good Practice Guide to the Development of the Multidisciplinary Team and the Value of the Specialist Nurse. That was created in conjunction with a number of healthcare charitable organisations. It outlines why services for neurological conditions are important, it shows the importance of those multidisciplinary teams, and it clarifies the contribution of specialist nurses.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
What is the position when a specialist nurse for MS or any other condition—I declare an interest as I have a daughter with MS—leaves a hospital and the hospital decides that it is not recruiting any more people? I know that local providers are independent, but can the department give some sort of guidance that specialist nurses should not be overlooked when they replace staff and that they should consider the special role that they have carried out?
Earl Howe
My noble friend makes an important point. The guide that I have just referred to in answering the noble Lord, Lord Walton, emphasises the important role of specialist nurses in the care of patients with neurological conditions. However, the key in the future will be better commissioning at a local level joined with better workforce planning at a provider level. If those charged with training and workforce planning tap into the commissioning plans that commissioning consortia determine, we will have a genuinely joined-up system that is also informed by the patient’s point of view.
Baroness Pitkeathley
My Lords, does the guide to which the Minister referred have anything to say about keeping records? MS patients, their families and carers always report that because it is an illness with long periods of remission—sometimes lasting years—the difficulty of keeping the records up to date causes them distress.
Earl Howe
The noble Baroness makes a very important point, and she is right. I will have to check whether the guide refers to that issue. I would be surprised if it did not. However, the central point that she makes is quite correct. The key to this, as so often, is good communication between those providing care at every stage of the care pathway. Sometimes, unfortunately, that breaks down.
Lord Laming
Can the Minister tell the House what means the Department of Health has for monitoring the reductions in these multidisciplinary teams to which he has referred? There is evidence, at a local level, of quite serious reductions at present.
Earl Howe
The problem is that, historically, there has been no requirement to publish information on the number of multiple sclerosis nurses. The NHS Information Centre for health and social care extracts data from the electronic staff record and quality-assures the data prior to publication in the non-medical workforce census. The qualified nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff group is broken down only by area of work, so it is quite difficult to keep a handle on this.
Baroness Hussein-Ece
My Lords, many people with a long-term condition such as multiple sclerosis are usually in their prime of life and in employment when they are diagnosed. It is therefore important to their well-being that they can continue with that employment as long as they are able to. Can the Minister say whether the government-led initiative Health, Work and Well-being is supporting these people and whether he is satisfied that all employers understand that those diagnosed with multiple sclerosis are protected by the Equality Act and the Disability Discrimination Act, depending on where they live?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am personally involved with Dame Carol Black in a work stream under the Responsibility Deal, which covers health in the workplace. Under that banner, we are emphasising to employers how important it is to understand the circumstances and needs of employees with a long-term condition. I will, however, go back and see whether I can provide my noble friend with a fuller reply.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that today I have received two letters, both from ME sufferers who have long-term neurological conditions? One of them has just been sacked by the National Health Service and the other has just been sacked by local government, for which she works. Can the noble Earl say what protection these people have in their workplace? Neither the NHS nor local government seems to understand that ME is a fluctuating condition and that the disability Acts require employers to make allowances for this.
Health: Hospital-acquired Infection
Earl Howe Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Lord Sheldon
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many hospital patients acquired an infection following their admission during 2010.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, information on all healthcare-associated infections is not collected centrally. The best available information is from the mandatory surveillance system, managed by the Health Protection Agency. During 2010, 1,630 MRSA bloodstream infections and 23,208 Clostridium difficile infections were reported in England. Of these, an estimated 818 and 11,547 cases respectively were acquired after admission to an acute National Health Service trust. Data on other infections subject to mandatory surveillance are not yet available for this period.
Lord Sheldon
My Lords, according to the British Medical Journal, about 7 per cent of patients in hospital in Europe develop healthcare-associated infections. In the past there was a shortage of beds in hospitals, but what is the position now? Is there still a shortage of beds, and how many hospital patients acquired an infection in 2010?
Earl Howe
My Lords, we expect all provider trusts to have sufficient isolation units for those patients in whom an infection is identified. I am not quite sure whether this is what lay behind the noble Lord’s question, but there is no evidence to support a link between higher bed occupancy rates and higher rates of healthcare-associated infections. The number of beds occupied in a trust, in other words, should not have a bearing on the infection rate in that hospital.
Lord Roberts of Conwy
My Lords, could the Minister confirm that the best hospitals actually test patients in advance of admission for MRSA, for example—as I personally was tested but yesterday at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital?
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
Does the Minister agree that the length of stay that a patient has increases the risk, particularly among elderly patients? Can he tell me how many elderly patients are now staying in hospital for greater lengths of time because they are not being discharged into appropriate local authority provision?
Earl Howe
The noble Baroness is quite right that delayed discharge poses a risk, not only in terms of infection but in terms of mobility and other issues that affect the elderly. We are clear that if this problem is to be eased, further funding is required at local authority level, which is why we have made available up to £1 billion over the period of the spending review to ensure that the issue is addressed.
Baroness Pitkeathley
I declare an interest as a recoverer from MRSA. Is the Minister making any assessment of the effectiveness of preventive measures, such as hand sanitisers and making sure that doctors do not wear ties, which droop in wounds, and so on?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the noble Baroness will know that a code of practice was issued some time ago, which the CQC uses to ensure that the registration requirements of a provider have been complied with. It is clear that the decline in numbers of hospital-acquired infections has coincided with the issue of that guidance. We believe that it has made a material difference. I am not aware that there has yet been systematic evidence-gathering of whether the guidance has had an effect, but it appears that it has.
Baroness Masham of Ilton
Does the Minister not think it is about time that the figures for infections were kept nationally? Is he aware that some hospitals have got better and some have got worse, and the outcomes across the country are very patchy?
Earl Howe
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. The headline figures disguise considerable variations between the best and worst performers. Our approach has been to adopt a zero tolerance policy to all avoidable healthcare-associated infections. To support that we have introduced a number of specific actions, including establishing clear objectives under the NHS operating framework, which are requirements for all trusts to meet, and for primary care organisations, and extending to health and social care settings the regulations on infection prevention and control. We have also increased the requirements on publishing data trust by trust.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, I welcome very much the fact that the Government have continued to bear down on this issue, which of course my Government made great strides on when we were in office. Can the Minister assure the House that the funding to continue bearing down on it will be ensured from a national level?
Earl Howe
My Lords, as the noble Baroness knows, we expect trusts and primary care organisations to utilise funds from within their global budgets to meet the requirements that I have just outlined, such as those in the NHS operating framework. These requirements are mandatory, and it appears that over the past few years, trusts and primary care organisations have really got to grips with this problem.
Lord Patel
My Lords, the Government are to be commended on insisting that all hospitals publish their infection rates for Clostridium difficile and MRSA on a weekly basis, which we can monitor on the website. It is interesting to note that one or two hospitals stand out by consistently having higher numbers while the rest make dramatic reductions. What is important, however, is that there has been no reduction in central venous line or other central line infections. I hope that the Government have a strategy similar to the one on MRSA and C. difficile to insist that hospitals reduce their rates of central line infections.
Earl Howe
My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point. We have consciously limited the extent to which it is a requirement to publish data to the most prevalent infections that need to be addressed. That is not to say that other types of infection are less important; they are extremely important. However, we would expect a ward-to-board policy to operate within each trust so that the boards of trusts bear down on these infections as hard as on others.
Care Homes
Earl Howe Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Baroness Bakewell
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to protect the interests of residents of care homes, such as those operated by Southern Cross.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, the Government will take whatever action is necessary to protect the welfare of care home residents. Southern Cross has plans in place to restructure its business and is keeping the Government updated on progress. We will continue to keep in close touch with the situation and will work with local authorities, the Care Quality Commission and others to ensure that there is an effective response, which delivers protection to everyone affected.
Baroness Bakewell
I thank the noble Earl for that information. Given the latest revelations that Southern Cross traded the care of older people for short-term profit and that the Care Quality Commission so woefully failed to come to the help of suffering people in a home in Bristol, can I urge him to take the most urgent steps as soon as possible to relieve the suffering of people who are old, frail and dependent, and who are suffering much neglect?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am sure the noble Baroness’s concerns will be echoed throughout the House. We have seen distressing reports in recent days of the treatment of certain patients in private hospitals, but the worry over Southern Cross relates much more to its financial situation and the future of its residents. I can assure the noble Baroness that we are taking this situation very seriously. We are in touch, as I have said, with all the relevant parties—and have been for the last several months. We are making sure that everybody is aware of their responsibilities in this area, not least towards the residents concerned. As regards Southern Cross, we are now in a critical period when restructuring is being explored, and we wish those efforts well.
Lord Low of Dalston
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the problems besetting Southern Cross are an object lesson in the dangers of market failure attending the privatisation of public services?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I do not agree with that. For many years, successive Governments have relied upon private care providers in social care. In general, this has been entirely satisfactory. It has given people wide choice in the care available and Governments have encouraged that. Financial issues for one provider—albeit a major one, I concede—do not undermine the entire principle of independent care provision.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree
Will my noble friend the Minister confirm that the original principle, stated to be the main aim of all these reforms, is unchanged in spite of the very necessary talks he is having with several different bodies? Is it still to be the case that nothing is more important than the care, treatment and curing of the patient, and the patient’s dignity and comfort, including being fed in hospital?
Earl Howe
I am grateful to my noble friend. That is entirely the aim of the modernisation programme for the NHS that we have laid out. It must be a much more patient-centred and user-centred service. As regards Southern Cross, we have said that there will be effective protection for the residents involved; no one will lose out. We are clear that we are putting the interests of residents first.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, does the Minister recall that, on the wind-up of CSCI—which he will recall because he was involved in the debate—we were given absolute assurances that the new successor body, the CQC, would target with random and unannounced visits all those care institutions in the United Kingdom where it was thought that people might be at risk? In so far as Southern Cross had a very bad track record and the CQC has failed to fulfil that promise, should not people at the top of the new body—the CQC—now consider their positions and, indeed, resign?
Earl Howe
My Lords, that is a rather harsh suggestion regarding Southern Cross. The noble Lord will know that care providers must demonstrate to the CQC that they have the financial resources needed to continue to provide services of the required quality. Clearly, there are lessons to be learnt from this episode with Southern Cross, which we all hope will resolve itself successfully. I am sure the CQC will take on board the lessons. From the briefing that I have had on the financial model that Southern Cross adopted, it is extraordinarily complex even for an expert to understand. We need to get that right. I know that my right honourable and honourable colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will be looking in general at business ownership and the issues surrounding that to see whether there are actions that we can take to prevent this kind of thing happening again.
Baroness Hollins
My Lords, with respect to Winterbourne View, could the Minister comment on why so much public money is being spent on placing people with learning disabilities in private hospitals, when government policy is to support such people in the community?
Earl Howe
My Lords, that falls a little way outside the Question on care homes and Southern Cross. I am sure the noble Baroness knows that Winterbourne View is a private hospital with completely different commissioning arrangements. However, I should be happy to write to her. A Written Ministerial Statement that sets out the full position on Winterbourne View is being put down in Hansard today.
Baroness Barker
My Lords, do the Government know how many of Southern Cross’s 31,000 residents are self-funders and therefore entitled only to information and advice? How many of them receive state care and are therefore entitled to alternative provision? Given the uneven geographical distribution of Southern Cross’s homes, do the Government know whether there will be any local authorities with no residential care provision should Southern Cross fail?
Earl Howe
On my noble friend’s last point, there is a national surplus of care home beds—the figure I have here is some 50,000. Therefore, there is, to my knowledge, in no area a shortage of beds. We are dealing here with a series of local markets. The point that I emphasised earlier remains important. Should it come to the closure of a care home—an event of which we should have reasonable notice if it happens—we will ensure that those in that care home are properly looked after.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, does the Minister actually think that a Written Ministerial Statement is sufficient to deal with the gravity of the treatment of the learning disabled in Winterbourne View care home, as shown on the “Panorama” programme, although I realise that that is not the subject of this Question? I agree with him that it is absurd to suggest that there is no role for private, voluntary, mutual and social enterprise providers in social care. How will the Minister ensure, therefore, that in the private sector—none of these things can happen in any of the other sectors—regulation is extended to cover the financial stability, including asset stripping, of organisations which provide these vital services for thousands of elderly people? I invite him to agree with me that it is very distasteful indeed that older people’s care should be regarded as a commodity to be traded.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I cannot help but agree with the noble Baroness’s last comment. I am sure she will know that we have embarked on a wide-ranging programme of reform of social care. We are considering the Law Commission’s recommendations for modernising social care law, and the report of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support is imminent. As I have said, many lessons have to be learnt from the events of recent weeks. We will want to reflect on them as part of our wider reform agenda. The business model that underpins many of these issues is a legitimate area for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to be looking at, although it will do so in a general rather than specific sense in relation to Southern Cross.
NHS: Reform
Earl Howe Excerpts(14 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they will ensure that their proposals for the reform of the National Health Service do not lead to a break up of the service.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, the Government are currently pausing to consider possible improvements to the Health and Social Care Bill. However, our proposals will reinforce the NHS as an integrated system, joining up working between the NHS, public health and social care locally. A new NHS commissioning board will set national commissioning guidelines promoting greater consistency. All NHS bodies and providers of NHS services will remain bound by the NHS constitution, and the Secretary of State will remain accountable overall.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Does he understand the issue of low morale within the NHS that is being caused by these proposals, as well as the concern and worry among patients? Let us be clear that the record of the Conservative Party on the NHS, now supported by the Liberal Democrats, is a great worry to citizens and to anyone who values and cherishes this House.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I accept that a number of aspects of the Government’s proposals have caused concern in many quarters, and that is why we have chosen to pause in order to listen and reflect on those concerns. As I have said, we will be bringing forward proposals shortly to improve the Bill. I hope that those proposals will meet with widespread acceptance. I think that it is fair to say that it is not the main principles which the Government have laid out that have been the subject of controversy but rather the detail and the implementation, which we are looking at most closely.
Lord Patel
My Lords, does the noble Earl agree that if we are going to make the proposed savings in the health service of £20 billion, some form of reconfiguration of how health services are delivered is inevitable? If that is so, which would he prefer: a market-driven reconfiguration, or a planned one that will contain costs in the future?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the way we have set out the Health and Social Care Bill means that, wherever possible, decisions on service reconfiguration will be taken at the local level. That will mean that all stakeholders locally, not only the NHS but local authorities, social services and patient groups, will buy in to and contribute to whatever decisions are taken. So my answer to the noble Lord is this: it should be a considered process of decision-making taken locally.
Baroness Hussein-Ece
My Lords, as we know, the NHS is the most valued public service in this country. It is one that we all rely on from the cradle to the grave. What are my noble friend’s views about the fact that it is still the most unaccountable public body delivering services that we have? It is still unaccountable to its users. What discussions have been taking place to ensure that the NHS becomes far more responsive and accountable to users?
Earl Howe
My noble friend has made a key point. As she will know, patient and public accountability is one of the themes of the listening exercise that we have been conducting. I anticipate that Professor Steve Field and his NHS Future Forum will come forward with some substantive recommendations on how we can improve the arrangements for accountability in the service. I agree with her that it is in practice less than accountable at the moment, and our view is that it should be accountable primarily to patients in the local area but also, crucially, to Parliament as well.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn
My Lords, ought not the Government to pause and think before they introduce policies and not cause disharmony within the service?
Earl Howe
My Lords, if the noble Lord remembers, we consulted extensively last year when we published our White Paper. However, as the Bill progressed though Parliament, it became apparent that concerns on the detail of the Bill gave rise to matters of implementation which could have legislative implications. That is why we have taken a second chance to look at that detail.
Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, would my noble friend care to cast any light on the fact that I have received criticisms of the Bill from virtually every health professional body but not one from a patient?
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood
My Lords, the NHS makes a considerable contribution to the health of patients through its participation in major research projects, working with drugs companies and those concerned to improve the quality of care in hospitals and outside. What protection is there for this continuing?
Earl Howe
The Bill states that the prospective NHS commissioning board will have a duty to promote research and continuous improvement in the quality of care. As the noble Lord will know, that duty will be underpinned by the role of NICE, which will be tasked with producing quality standards that are informed by the latest innovations coming through from the research agenda.
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, I am sure that all of us await with considerable interest the outcome of the review that was recently undertaken and its proposals relating to the changes proposed in the Health and Social Care Bill. May I take it that, in addition to the bodies which the noble Earl listed, the universities which train doctors and other healthcare professionals and provide facilities for research will be fully consulted because of the importance of the training of those professionals in the NHS?
Earl Howe
The noble Lord is quite right. The vital importance of education and training is one of the four main themes of the listening exercise. We have received some very interesting and significant proposals from the academic sector which Professor Field will no doubt reflect in his conclusions.
Baroness Thornton
According to information provided in response to a recent freedom of information request, in Hull GPs have 17 per cent of the budget whereas in the East Riding they have 69 per cent; in Derbyshire there are 12 finance officers supporting GPs, whereas in Bristol there are none; and in London there are 10 executive directors, of which three are public health directors, but nobody knows to which of the 32 boroughs they belong. How will the Government ensure patient safety in what I hope the Government might recognise is possible impending chaos resulting from the de facto implementation of key parts of the Bill, the dismantling of the SHAs and PCTs, the patchwork of growth of new organisation and the leaching away of experienced staff?
Earl Howe
My Lords, we are putting patient safety at the centre of the NHS by moving it to the NHS commissioning board. In that way, patient safety will be embedded into the health service through GP commissioning and their contracts with providers. We are strengthening the Care Quality Commission so that patients know whether providers are meeting minimum standards of safety. We are also developing outcome measures for patient safety so that everyone can see how organisations are performing and can be held to account by the people that they serve.