Care Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness Warnock

Monday 21st October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg to move my Amendment 168B as an amendment to Amendment 168A moved by the noble Earl, Lord Howe.

We have just heard the noble Earl suggest that his amendment makes small changes and is a clarification of the existing law. However, it is my contention that the amendment is nothing short of a major change in policy on the reconfiguration of NHS services. Your Lordships are being asked to agree to it even though the case, or one of the cases, on which it is based—that of Lewisham hospital—is subject to an imminent Court of Appeal hearing. If it is accepted by the House, it is my view that NHS hospitals will be at risk of having services shut down without their agreement, without extensive consultation and without agreement from commissioners.

The changes made to the special administration regime by the government amendment would also extenuate the problems caused by having a different failure regime for NHS trusts compared with NHS foundation trusts—a point that my noble friend Lord Warner has consistently made.

Finally, to be effective, the changes could be construed as meaning that, for the first time, the Secretary of State has the power to issue directions to require the boards of solvent and successful clinical commissioning groups and NHS foundation trusts to take steps that they do not wish to take.

I see this not as a clarification of the law but as a major policy change that is at odds with the approach taken by the Secretary of State in the 2012 Act, when he repeatedly put his faith in local commissioning by local doctors. I make it clear that I am not opposed to changes in services: I support the major reconfiguration of services where clinical evidence supports it. Indeed, I should like to see much faster progress. When I and my noble friend Lord Warner argued this during the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill, the Government ploughed on with their extensive and fragmentary changes. The Government have belatedly come to realise that the structure they imposed is actually a barrier to progress—hence the amendment. It is also clear that, given the dire financial straits of many NHS organisations, the special administration process is likely to be used on an increasing basis. My concern is that giving so much power to trust special administrators is the wrong way to go about it. Indeed, evidence from Lewisham and Staffordshire suggests that it will often provoke widespread opposition and slow down progress.

As the noble Earl has said, the key change that the Government want to make is to ensure that the Secretary of State can act on recommendations that affect other NHS trusts, NHS foundation trusts or other providers and commissioners outwith the trust to which a special administrator has been appointed. How this would happen has been graphically illustrated in the case of Lewisham. The South London Healthcare NHS Trust was a badly performing trust with an accumulated deficit of £196 million. Consequently, a trust special administrator was appointed. In his draft report of 24 October 2012, he recommended that University Hospital Lewisham should no longer provide emergency care for critically ill patients who did not need to be admitted to hospital and that it should lose its obstetrics-led maternity unit.

The Secretary of State made some changes to those recommendations but Lewisham hospital would still have seen some significant downgrading in its services. This approach had no support locally and was blatantly unfair to the people of Lewisham. As Mr Justice Silber said when the Lewisham case came to the High Court:

“There are few issues which prompt such vociferous protest as attempts to reduce the services at a hospital which is highly regarded and which is much used by those who live in its neighbourhood”.

In the High Court, Lewisham Council and the campaign group argued that Lewisham hospital was not in the NHS trust over which the trust special administrator had been appointed and that the Secretary of State could make recommendations and decisions only in relation to the three hospitals in the South London Healthcare NHS Trust but not in relation to hospitals outside the trust area. The judge subsequently found in favour of Lewisham Council and concluded that the trust special administrator and the Secretary of State were not entitled to make recommendations and decide to reduce services at Lewisham because it was not a hospital over which the administrator had been appointed. It was situated in a totally different trust.

The appeal of the Lewisham decision by the Government will be held shortly. I find it remarkable that without hearing the outcome of the case they are seeking to amend the law in such a hasty way. The noble Earl said in his letter to us that the trust special administrator regime is,

“one way in which decisive action can be taken to deal with NHS trusts or NHS foundation trusts that are unsustainable in their current form”.

I agree, but surely not at the expense of well run trusts. Of course there need to be changes in the local health economy beyond just the trust that is failing; a trust does not fail in isolation but is part of a complex, interconnected system—change one bit and you impact on the other bits. However, the legislation was intended to deal with a simple case in which a trust had failed and was then broken up, with its assets being transferred or sold off. My contention is that this type of approach is not suited to major reconfiguration processes and should not be a back-door way to achieve unpopular changes.

I should also say that the government amendment seems to introduce a major anomaly around commissioning. A clinical commissioning group that commissions services from a failing NHS foundation trust is entitled to define and protect essential NHS services, but a clinical commissioning group that commissions services from a successful NHS trust can now see local services removed, even if that clinical commissioning group considers those services to be essential.

Further, the scheme proposed by the amendment appears to be legally ineffective. Neither a clinical commissioning group nor a foundation trust is subject to the direction-making powers of the Secretary of State—both are independent corporate bodies with boards which are responsible for making their own decisions. It is unclear to me how the boards of the clinical commissioning group and a foundation trust are supposed to be legally required to carry through any decision which is made within a special administration process relating to another body.

Nor is it clear what happens if the commissioners do not wish to commission services against the model that the special administrator has proposed. That is the case in Mid Staffordshire, where the special administrator’s proposals have not found favour with either the public or the clinical commissioning group. There appears to be no limit to how far recommendations might stretch to be “necessary” and “consequent”. It is clear that one trust could have many commissioners, and changes in services could impact upon many other trusts. The special administrator is being given a free hand to cast his net as widely as he wishes.

In conclusion, there are serious defects in the special administration process which the noble Earl’s amendment does little to resolve; indeed, it brings further anomalies and inconsistencies. However, my key concern about the amendment is that it removes the requirement to go through a properly defined and structured reconfiguration process, with extensive consultation with the local community. From all that we have learnt about successful reconfigurations, we know that they need to take a special form of open and honest leadership, a patient process of engagement and consultation, and proper consideration of the wider impact. The Government really should think again about this and my amendment gives them the opportunity to do so.

[Baroness Warnock (CB)]

My Lords, I have hesitated to speak before about the Lewisham situation, partly because I believe that some changes are needed in hospital provision over the whole country but mainly because, as a resident in the borough of Lewisham, I might be thought to be so biased that my opinions would carry no weight. However, the situation has radically changed with the introduction of the noble Earl’s amendment.

It is completely intolerable that the law should be changed and overturned in this hasty way, regardless of the fact that everybody admits that there is no fault to be found with the Lewisham hospital administration. It is an admirable hospital and its extensive and thorough accident and emergency section is particularly valued by a large number of people, for whom Lewisham is a centre to which they can get easily by various forms of transport, let alone by ambulance.

The contention that it would make little difference to the residents of Lewisham if this comprehensive A&E department were closed was risible. The tests to see how long on average it would take to get there were carried out at dead of night, and in various ways there was a great deal of false suggestion in the administrator’s conclusions. Above all, the clinical commissioners were by no means convinced and were not in agreement with the proposals.

The reason for speaking so strongly in favour of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is that things have now moved far beyond Lewisham. I am speaking not only about the Lewisham situation; the proposals are perfectly general—the powers proposed for the Secretary of State could be used anywhere in the country.

What we have now is a radical change of power and, as other noble Lords have said, all hospitals are now under threat of closure, whether or not they are successful or administered with financial prudence, as Lewisham has been. It seems to me that this is an absolutely arbitrary overturning of what was found in court. Therefore, I beg noble Lords to think of this amendment in that light and not just to be concerned with the two particular trusts but with hospital provision all over the country.