Health and Care Bill

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Mawson

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Tuesday 18th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

My Lords, there is just one amendment in this debate. My other two come further on.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, it is a huge pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. I have signed and strongly support all the amendments tabled by the noble Lord to ensure that integrated care boards are closely connected to local communities. We have riches yet to come: the noble Lord’s later amendments ensure that local solutions are prioritised, and that procurement is firmly rooted in local communities, but I will speak only to Amendment 41A.

I will give an example of when the noble Lord and I have been involved in another project, beyond the very important Bromley-by-Bow project that the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, talked about; namely, the St Paul’s Way Transformation Project, the health, education, jobs and skills, and community campus which started in 2006. It is a great example of a response to the local challenges faced in an east London neighbourhood very close to Bromley-by-Bow, with failing health and education services and community relationships. This transformation project was focused on integration from day one and has been a huge success.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, talked about the extraordinary track record of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, as a social entrepreneur. He launched this project in partnership with the NHS and Tower Hamlets Council, and brought together the local authority, the local school, the GP network, the local housing association, Poplar Housing and Regeneration Community Association, and the diocese of London, to bring about transformational change in and around St Paul’s Way, a main street running through Poplar. Together they built a new secondary school, new primary school, new health centre, new mosque, new community centre and restaurant, new park, new street scene and 595 new homes. In parallel with this, the quality of the local leadership, and hence of local service provision, was transformed. The failing secondary school moved to Ofsted outstanding, the failed GP practice was replaced and its successor became CQC outstanding, and the independently monitored residents’ satisfaction level is currently 85%.

The St Paul’s Way project has been a great success story of local partnership with other local actors. For example, near neighbour Queen Mary University of London, the governing body of which I chair, with two campuses in Tower Hamlets, and which is intimately involved in the governance of St Paul’s Way Trust School, helped design and develop the school’s new science labs. They are in the health building, which the school uses and where we have taken space for our school of dentistry and DNA research.

Partners in the local schools, the GP practice and the housing association have played an important role in recent years, as they have shared their work and experience with communities in towns and cities across the north of England and now beyond. However, the project faces major challenges, as outdated NHS procurement systems are now in danger of undermining the good work that it has been doing for over a decade. Amid this project being put together, the PCT procured a primary healthcare provider with no London experience, let alone any local experience. After two years, it surrendered the contract because it had not understood that primary healthcare is very different and costs a lot more to deliver in Poplar than in affluent suburbs. This experience is an illustration of the importance of there being a neighbourhood voice in the making of decisions by the NHS, which, if they are got wrong, can damage the ability of local integrated partnerships to function and develop effectively at the neighbourhood level. There is an opportunity to address this in legislation.

In this light, how can the Government make integration a reality? This is a clear example of disconnects that will be replicated on other streets across the country, and a demonstration of what happens when the NHS procurement systems and policy do not take place and neighbourhood seriously. Health is about bringing people and communities together, not undermining them. The solutions are often local and not in large outdated systems and processes. This local approach must be embraced. It is at the 50,000-person neighbourhood level, not an enormous eight-borough ICS where integration aimed at innovation in prevention and recovery can be most effective. Neighbourhood must be understood, valued, and given leverage in the system and flexible use of budgets. It is at this level that the actual practical interventions can happen. It is here that schools, housing, job opportunities and community action can happen. Neighbourhoods can act with speed and agility.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, suggested that the Ministers visit Bromley-by-Bow; equally, I suggest a visit to the St Paul’s Way transformation project. This amendment is as much about creating the right culture as the right representative structure. I hope that the Government accept this important amendment and the other amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, on this subject.