Care Bill [HL]

Lord Adebowale Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 92BA and 104ZA. My noble friend Lady Browning and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, whose names are also attached, are not in their places.

I welcome the attempt in the Bill to tackle the issue of transition from children’s services to adult social services and to try to make it work for young people. Clauses 55 to 63 undoubtedly present an important step in the right direction. However, some improvements are needed to ensure that the Bill provides the appropriate legal basis for the smooth transition for young people from children’s services to adult services that I am sure we would all like to see, and to remove the cliff edge that has been referred to in this and previous debates.

First, Amendment 92BA relates to Clause 63, which is about the continuity of services and is designed to ensure that if adult care and support is not in place by the time the child reaches 18, the services they receive under other legislation will continue until adult care and support is put in place. The potential for this change to benefit young disabled people making the transition to adulthood is very much to be welcomed. However, the benefits outlined in Clause 63 apply only if a request has been made for a child’s needs assessment by the time that child turns 18. The concern remains that some young people will not be able to benefit from this protection because they or their parents or carers will not be aware that they need to request an assessment by the time they are 18. Therefore, the amendment would ensure that every child who is receiving support under the relevant legislation and is likely to continue to have a support need after the age of 18 receives that assessment and the benefits that flow from it.

With regard to Amendment 1042A, as I have said in some of our earlier debates on the Bill, there is an overlap in the jurisdiction between this Bill and the Children and Families Bill, which specifically relates to social care for young people entering adulthood. The proposed new education, health and care plans, which the Children and Families Bill sets out to introduce, are at the very centre of this debate. If the aim of the current legislation is to create a better, joined-up system—as I think it should be and I am sure that other noble Lords agree—it is vital that the Care Bill makes reference to these EHC plans.

I will briefly explain that important link between the two Bills. At the same time as the Care Bill aims to bring adult social care into the 21st century, the Children and Families Bill aims to create a new joined-up system of support for children and young people with special educational needs between the ages of nought and 25. Plainly, with the Care Bill applying to adults from the age of 18 and the Children and Families Bill setting out the framework for children and young people up to the age of 25, there is an overlap in the 18-to-25 age range. It is vital that these plans are able to talk to each other if we are really to have the sort of integrated system that we all want, and if we are to achieve that desired goal of a one-stop shop of services that young people can access when they need them.

I support many of the other amendments in this group, but shall not spend time going through them.

[Lord Adebowale]

My Lords, I support Amendments 92B, 92C and 92D, which are also in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, who have spoken eloquently on this matter. I declare an interest as the chief executive of Turning Point, which provides health and social care to many young people in the process of transition. I know, as we all do, that transition can be a very delicate process if not done well. Young people slip through the net between children’s and adult services and begin their adult lives without adequate care and support, which risks deterioration of physical and mental health, and the escalation of need to the point of crisis. That is both immoral and expensive.

The Bill goes a long way to improve the current situation. I am pleased to hear that Ministers informed the House during an earlier session that discussions between the Department of Health and the Department for Education about the links referred to between this Bill and the Children and Families Bill are already taking place. These transition amendments offer an opportunity for us to go further—it is quite rare for a Bill to offer an opportunity to do something quite brilliant for young people—and to ensure that all young people receive support under other legislation. That support is likely to continue after young people reach 18 and they will receive an offer of a needs assessment from their local authority. Importantly, this process will begin in good time.

This includes those young people—or their families and carers, as has already been mentioned—who have not themselves requested an assessment. It is an important addition to recognise that there may be cases, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, where a family just does not realise that they need to request an assessment. Good transition is about helping to ensure that local authorities are better prepared to meet the needs of young people. If assessments can be conducted earlier, so long as this is what young people and their families want, care and support can be in place sooner, and there is less risk of people’s needs escalating to the point of crisis.

I hope that the Minister will agree that the assessment process needs to begin in good time, and that he can assure the House that those who do not themselves request an assessment will also be able to benefit from the improvements that this Bill offers.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I will make two quick points, the hour being late. The Government need to look again at the way this Bill works with the Children and Families Bill. These arrangements look clunky for those moving from childhood into adulthood. The real problem is that this Bill does not seem to work on the basis that many, if not most, of these children will be known to the same local authority. Why, then, is this Bill framed as though they are strangers coming into the system, in which the local authority is permitted to involve them? The local authority should have an obligation to make seamless the move from childhood to adult services. The Bill does not really deliver that. The Government need to look again at that transition point, and reconcile the Children and Families Bill and the Care Bill, because they do not work together as well as they might.