Health and Social Care Bill

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 83 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Patel. This amendment proposes that:

“Regulations must require the Board to commission services for veterans who have lost limbs”.

The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that those who have served our nation and who have quite rightly received the highest standards of care—both in theatre in the battlefield at the time when they sustained horrific injuries, then during their immediate aftercare back here in the United Kingdom and thereafter while remaining members of the Armed Forces receiving ongoing rehabilitation—can be certain that, once they are discharged from the services and return to civilian life, they are able to avail themselves of the necessary specialist services for years and decades hence. There is no doubt that what is achieved in battlefield salvage is quite remarkable, and those who sustain horrific injuries that some time ago would not have been survivable are now saved and can continue, from a young age, with the prospect of a good quality of life. However, the injuries, particularly the limb losses and multiple limb losses that they have suffered, will require ongoing specialist care.

Her Majesty’s Government have recognised the importance of this area and the noble Earl’s honourable friend the Member for South West Wiltshire, Dr Andrew Murrison, has recently published a report, A Better Deal for Military Amputees, in which he reviews both what is achieved acutely for these brave servicemen and what their ongoing clinical and other needs may be. He makes a number of important recommendations in the report. He suggests that a nationally commissioned service for veterans is the best fit for service-attributable amputees and, of the options he puts, looks at the option most likely to deliver the most for the wider amputee community. He goes on to make a specific recommendation that:

“Ministers should take appropriate powers to provide for national commissioning of specialist prosthetic and rehabilitation services for amputee veterans through a small number of multi-disciplinary centres in England, adequately resourced and determined through a tendering exercise”.

He puts the question that:

“Ministers will have to consider the extent to which existing legislation and the Health and Social Care Bill which is currently before the House of Commons”—

it was at the time—

“permit the national specialist commissioning of special provision for amputee veterans, tabling any necessary secondary legislation or amendments to Clause 11 in the Health Bill”.

So there is a broad recognition by those who have been commissioned by Her Majesty’s Government to look at this issue. The commissioning of specialist services for amputee veterans to ensure their long-term good clinical outcomes—that they may avail themselves of advances in the future, which are going to be dramatic and important in the decades hence and which could have an important impact on their ability to function—and that they have a high quality of life will only be achieved through national specialist commissioning of amputee services.

The Prime Minister, in his response to the report, stated the following:

“I am passionately committed to our Armed Forces. As a country and as a Government we have a particular duty to servicemen and women injured on operational duty. This report maps out a clear strategy for ensuring that those brave people can be confident they will receive the same levels of access to prosthetic limbs and specialist care from the NHS as they do at Headley Court. They deserve nothing less. Based on the recommendations in this report, this Government will make the resources necessary to meet that need”.

This amendment provides an opportunity to ensure that those needs are met. I strongly believe that only through the specialist commissioning of these particular services will the long-term interests of our brave service personnel, who have lost multiple limbs and who have to contend with that in their veteran lives, be properly secured. I hope very much that Her Majesty’s Government and the noble Earl will consider this amendment seriously.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

My Lords, having put my name to Amendment 79, I support the powerful case made by my noble friend Lord Warner for the inclusion of long-term conditions and integrated services in the Bill. I particularly draw your Lordships’ attention to those long-term conditions that can be fluctuating as well as progressive. While it may be progressive in an overall sense, an illness such as multiple sclerosis has periods of varying intensity, when needs are different, and even periods—sometimes quite long periods—of remission. It is very important, therefore, that services are not only commissioned across health and social care—it is very important that there is a whole package of support; that is of such significance to users and their families—but also that those packages of care are flexible enough to cope with the varying progress of these illnesses.

The last thing that an MS sufferer, for example, wants when a period of remission suddenly ends with a fresh attack, as it frequently does, is to go back to square one on clinical commissioning, especially as far as the integration of clinical and social care commissioning is concerned. They do not want to go back to starting the assessment process or back to judgments about need and the abilities of their families to care for them, and so on, with all the delays and distress associated with reassessment and all the unnecessary expense that these processes involve. That applies very much also to those with certain mental health conditions, which are also fluctuating in their intensity. So proper care across integrated services not only prevents acute episodes but also helps to support caring families to participate in care effectively, as they wish to do, thus saving scarce resources as well as meeting the needs of those who are suffering.