NHS: Dermatology Services
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to improve dermatology services in the National Health Service.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, we want all patients with dermatological conditions to have access to high-quality, patient-centred services wherever they live. NHS England has set national standards to ensure that the needs of patients with the rarest skin conditions are met, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published clinical guidance and quality standards to drive improvement for common conditions, and we are currently investing more than £9 million in dermatology research.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, does the noble Earl believe that we have the balance right between the training that doctors and other healthcare professionals receive and the people they have to deal with, who have conditions ranging from minor skin complaints to serious skin cancers? If we do not have the balance right, what appropriate changes have to be made to make sure that patients are provided with the best possible care?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the Government have mandated Health Education England to provide national leadership on education, training and workforce development. Dermatology is currently a key part of the generalist undergraduate medical curriculum and a component of GP training. The General Medical Council requires that the undergraduate medical curriculum should provide enough structured clinical placements to enable students to demonstrate the outcomes for graduates across a range of clinical specialties, including dermatology.
Care Sector
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Kingsmill on securing this important debate today and on the review that she undertook into the working conditions in the care sector, which certainly deserves more attention in the media. The review is an important marker that highlights some of the most pressing issues surrounding working conditions in the care sector and how unacceptable these conditions are. It is for government to take action to deal with the worst excesses. The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, highlighted some of those in her contribution. My right honorable friend in the other place, Mr Andrew Smith, highlighted some of these issues in the Westminster Hall debate held on 14 November—as my noble friend Lady Andrews mentioned.
In my remarks this evening I want to talk about the working poor, the problems that they face and the fact that the care industry has lots of people working in it who can be described as working poor. Maybe some years ago it would have been suggested that poor people are those who are unemployed and have no job. We have also talked about and identified pensioners who are in poverty, but this concept of working poor and the fact that this is growing should be a matter of much regret and shame. My right honourable friend Andrew Smith quoted Winston Churchill, who spoke in the other place in 1909. He said:
“It is a serious national evil that any class of His Majesty’s subjects should receive less than a living wage in return for their utmost exertions … where you have what we call sweated trades, you have no organisation, no parity of bargaining, the good employer is undercut by the bad and the bad by the worst; the worker, whose whole livelihood depends upon the industry, is undersold by the worker who only takes up the trade as a second string … where these conditions prevail you have not a condition of progress, but a condition of progressive degeneration”.—[Official Report, 28/4/1909; Commons; col. 388.]
Things have without doubt improved since 1909, but there are unfortunately numerous examples such as those referred to in this debate where bad practice exploits workers and people are treated very badly, and it is the duty of government to protect workers from this exploitation. I would say that the Government will have to be a little more proactive in this area to convince me that this is something they are truly committed to delivering on.
Returning to the point I made about the working poor, this sector employs the vast majority of people in the private sector or in the voluntary sector, amounting to about 76% of the total workforce of approximately 1.15 million, with nearly two-thirds working in private establishments. It is a matter of much regret that the sector has high levels of non-compliance with the national minimum wage, to which my noble friend Lady Andrews referred, and I hope that the noble Earl will tell us what will be done to make good this terrible wrong.
The growth in zero hours contracts in this sector, to which my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton referred, is generally encouraging exploitation of workers and making life difficult and unstable. Some people may like the ability to fix their employment hours week by week or day by day but I contend that it is a significant minority. According to the latest report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, insecure, low-paid jobs are leaving record numbers of working families in poverty, with two-thirds of people who found work in the past year taking jobs for less than the living wage—and a large number of those jobs will be in this sector.
The living wage is calculated at £7.85 an hour nationally and £9.15 in London, which is much higher than the legally enforceable but still breached minimum wage of £6.50 per hour. While not all these issues are in the noble Earl’s area of responsibility, I hope that he can see the perfect storm of people working in a sector where the majority of staff are on low wages, the problems that that can bring in not being able to provide an income to be able to look after yourself and your family, and the reliance on the benefits system. We should add to that the housing crisis, where we have low-paid workers who are not able to get a foothold on the property ladder and are unable to get into social housing, so they are forced into the private rented sector. Then we have banks refusing to lend to people, so access to affordable forms of credit is more difficult or not available at all. People are pushed into more expensive and unsuitable forms of credit and, as I said earlier, we have the perfect storm, because these things come together: they are not in isolation.
The care worker being exploited by an unscrupulous employer and not paid even the minimum wage will be the same person who is struggling to make ends meet. They will be the same person who goes to the bank and is unlikely to get the financial products they want at an affordable price. They may also, through desperation, purchase financial products that are totally unsuitable: payday loans, logbook loans and other unsatisfactory rip-off products. They are also more likely to live in an area that does not have an abundance of free cash machines—they will pay to get their own money out—and are more likely to live in poor accommodation.
As I said, not all of those things are in the noble Earl’s immediate area of responsibility, but as a member of Her Majesty’s Government I am sure he will agree these are serious matters that a joined-up and collective approach by government needs to address. In conclusion, I look forward to the noble Earl’s response, and that of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.
NHS: Funding
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they intend to take to deal with the projected funding gap for the National Health Service in England.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, NHS spending has increased in real terms by £5 billion over this Parliament, underlining the priority the Government place on the NHS. NHS England’s Five Year Forward View set out a range of future scenarios. While NHS funding beyond 2015-16 will be a matter for the next spending review, the Government believe that changes in the way that services are delivered are essential, both to moderate rapid increases in demand and to improve efficiency.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I first declare an interest as president of the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, a small trade union professional association that has members working in the health service.
Is the noble Earl aware of the concerns of the BMA and others that the recent changes to NHS structures, particularly funding structures, actually risk worsening health inequalities? What will the noble Earl do to ensure that that does not come to fruition?
Earl Howe
My Lords, tackling health inequalities is one of the major tasks facing NHS England. It is built not only into its mandate but into legislation, and we expect NHS England to address it at every level—both in the acute area and in the community. It is of course up to local commissioners to prioritise their funding, but we expect to see over the next few years a shift from care in the acute sector to care in the community, both to prevent acute admissions and to ensure that people stay healthy for longer in their own homes.
NHS: Ambulance Response Times
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of ambulance 999 response times.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, the NHS is responding to the majority of emergency calls in less than eight minutes, despite the number of these calls having increased by almost 14% from 2011-12 to 2013-14. The NHS has been supported to ensure that urgent and emergency care services are sustainable all year round and are ready for the pressures that winter can bring. Some £18 million will be allocated directly to ambulance service commissioners with a further £10 million to ensure sustained high performance.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, FOI disclosures indicate that, since 2010, seven out of 10 of England’s ambulance trusts have increased their spending on commercial and voluntary ambulances. In London, spending has grown from £829,000 in 2010 to £9.2 million in 2013. Does the noble Earl share the concern of the president of the College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Clifford Mann, who has said that this is an issue which is causing deep concern and is,
“incredibly wasteful and potentially dangerous”?
Earl Howe
My Lords, patients have the right to a high-quality urgent and emergency care service whenever they call upon it, and we expect ambulance trusts to provide that. We are aware that independent or voluntary ambulance services may be used to support NHS ambulance services because they can help manage peaks in demand. Individual NHS ambulance services have got to ensure that 999 calls are attended by staff who are properly trained and adequately equipped. Indeed, since 2011 the providers of independent ambulance services have had to register with the Care Quality Commission, which monitors, inspects and regulates all services.
NHS: Better Care Fund
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what effect the better care fund is having on the ability of the National Health Service to provide services to patients.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to have secured this debate today. We are all getting older and living longer, and that is very welcome, as medical and scientific advances make illness and diseases that would have killed us off no longer the threat to us that they were. There is still much to do, although that progress is very welcome.
However, as a consequence, we have an ageing population, which brings its own challenges: how we care for people as they live to a much older age and more people living with long-term conditions. It has long been recognised and has been an aim of Governments to deliver better integration of health and social care and improve people’s health and well-being by ensuring continuity of care while making the best use of resources.
I am sure that, in his response, the noble Earl will tell the House in some detail about the pooling of funds and the plans for local areas, including: the sharing of data and improving continuity of care; the plans for acting earlier so that people can stay healthy and independent at home; and delivering care that is centred on individual needs, with NHS and social care staff working together to deliver better outcomes for individuals.
The King’s Fund has done interesting research in this area and made some predictions about what will be the needs, how we will be living, and the pressures that that will place on the NHS. Those are important considerations in the planning that needs to be undertaken to meet the challenges ahead.
In the next 20 years, the number of people aged over 85 is expected to double. By 2030, the number of older people with care needs is expected to rise by 61%. At the same time, we expect 40% of households to be comprised of people living on their own. The number of people with dementia is expected to more than double in the next 30 years.
It is also a fact that people from the most affluent socioeconomic classes can expect to live as much as seven years longer than those from the poorest socioeconomic classes. Those and similar statistics point to increased pressure and demand on health and social care services, and government at all levels has to respond effectively to that challenge.
The better care fund is a good initiative but, as with many other things that the Government are doing in the area of health, I always have a niggling doubt whether they will put the resources in place to deliver the outcomes that we all want. I do not doubt the noble Earl’s personal commitment but as with many things in the health and social care sector, money more wisely spent at an earlier stage can deliver much better results for the patients and cost much less to the NHS.
I am a diabetic and I declare an interest as an active member of the charity Diabetes UK. I take the example of diabetic foot care and the fact that so many people have unnecessary amputations. Those could so easily be avoided; we are just not dealing with this issue. The cost to the individuals is high and traumatic. Then there is the cost to the NHS for the operations and the aftercare, and of course the projected lifespan after that, too. We need to ensure that people are able to enjoy an active and healthy life within their own communities, thereby reducing the demand for health and social care services. Well over two-thirds of patient bed days are for people with long-term conditions and a greater emphasis on self-management programmes can help to reduce unplanned hospital admissions. Ambulatory care-sensitive conditions accounted for 15.9% of all hospital admissions in England in 2009-10, with an estimated cost to the public purse of £1.42 billion. The rate of admission for those conditions in the most deprived areas was twice that in the least deprived.
Older people who are frail are a key concern for health and social care services and are at risk of sudden decline, including falling or becoming immobile. Identifying those at risk of falls and the setting-up of fracture prevention services for older people has been found to reduce hospital admissions and the need for social care, such as admission to a care home. Care co-ordination and proper case management, if well designed, has the potential to deliver better and more cost-effective care for the individual. However, as I have said, all these things have to be properly resourced to deliver the intended outcomes and savings in the future.
Just look at the whole area of emergency admissions, which can account for 70% of hospital bed days and 80% of stays of two weeks or more. A whole range of factors are at play here for hospital admissions including age, social deprivation, ethnicity and living in an urban area. A lack of alternative options then sees people being admitted to a hospital bed. That might not be the best thing for them but there is no alternative. Then on discharge, the important thing is to have a proper discharge plan in place so that people can remain at home in the long term and regain their independence.
At this point I declare that I am a member of Lewisham Borough Council, which will be involved in delivering services through the fund. The Local Government Association expressed concerns as recently as last month, warning that a larger better care fund is needed for a five-year period, with alongside that a separate transformation fund to ease the impact of these changes. It rightly expressed concern about the lack of clarity on the future of health and social care funding, which could put at risk the efforts to integrate services. The LGA is urging the Government to commit to a five-year plan, taking us to 2020. Can the noble Earl confirm whether this will in fact be delivered? If he cannot, can he tell the House why not? As I said, my worry is that the plan will falter because its provision of resources will be too short-sighted.
I have a number of questions for the noble Earl. If he can answer from the Dispatch Box that would be much appreciated. I do not expect him to do so; all I ask is that he gives a commitment to write to me afterwards and copy that to other noble Lords who speak in the debate today. I will take each question in turn. Will diabetes and diabetes foot care be prioritised as part of the better care fund? Will dementia be prioritised as part of it? Are there any plans to change the procurement rules when implementing the better care fund? What does seven-day working for social care mean? Is it correct that the health and well-being board chairs will have to sign off their local plans? What happens if the parties involved in devising a local plan cannot reach agreement? Is the better care fund’s additional allocation of funding in 2015-16 recurring or non-recurring?
In conclusion, I am delighted to have secured this debate. I look forward to the contributions of all noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and of course the noble Earl.
National Health Service: Hospital Beds
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s report on the number of hospital beds per person in the United Kingdom in comparison to Europe.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, numbers of hospital beds per person do not provide meaningful comparisons of good-quality care. Our NHS is making efficient use of its beds by judging patient demand and managing bed numbers accordingly. In the NHS, as in Europe, the number of beds has reduced because progress in medical technology is enabling more patients to be treated and discharged on the same day, and average length of hospital stay has reduced over the past decade.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, France has twice the number of beds we have here in the UK while Germany, I think, has nearly three times as many. We are now seeing dangerous levels of overcrowding, with greater risk of infection due to beds not being cleaned properly in time. Does the Minister not see that this is very reminiscent of the previous time his party was in office and that the NHS is just not safe in their hands?
Earl Howe
No, in a word. First of all, it is very important to compare like with like. A number of other health systems have completely different models from our own. For example, they still have large, long-stay hospitals for people with mental health problems and older people. The NHS has a strong primary care tradition and is committed to providing care in the community. Some of the statistics that have been collated by the OECD include systems in Europe where nursing home beds are included in the figures or indeed the private sector. We are seeing healthcare infections at their lowest ever levels. There have been dramatic falls in both MRSA and C. diff infections since 2010.
Drug Companies: Medical Trials
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they intend to take in respect of drug companies that withhold the results of medical trials.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, companies are legally required through the marketing authorisation application process to provide the relevant regulatory authority with all information for evaluation of a medicine. This includes clinical trial results which are both favourable and unfavourable. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has powers to take action where particulars supporting an application are incorrect or where the company has failed to inform authorities of new information that would influence the evaluation of the benefits and risks of the product.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, the number 1 risk on the Government’s national risk assessment for civil emergencies, ahead of both coastal flooding and a major terrorist incident, is that of pandemic influenza. Is the noble Lord concerned that Tamiflu, which is supplied for use in a flu epidemic, may not be as effective as was once thought? Is he concerned that many large-scale trials of Tamiflu have not been publicly reported?
Earl Howe
My Lords, during the course of last year, the Government gave detailed evidence to the Science and Technology Committee on the issue of data provision in respect of clinical trials. The committee made a number of helpful recommendations on the removal of barriers to transparency. In our formal response, we set out how we would work to achieve the aims of greater transparency. In the light of that response, the Government are looking into the recommendations of the PAC report on the stockpiling of Tamiflu and access to clinical trials data, published in January. We will give our formal response to the report next month.
NHS: Accident and Emergency Units
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady McDonagh for securing this debate on the future of NHS accident and emergency units. At the start I declare an interest: I chair, on an entirely voluntary basis, a small committee at Lewisham hospital. It is impossible in just three minutes to get across the scale of the problems and the anxiety and concern of local communities about the A&E crisis that is unfolding before us as the winter sets in.
What did the Government do as soon as they came into office? They had a top-down reorganisation of the NHS, after pledging not to do that, which only made matters worse. What is clear is that this is the Government’s problem. It has happened on their watch, with poor implementation of their already flawed policies, and the cuts they have made to the NHS, to social services and other budgets. There has also been the running down of NHS Direct and the ramshackle way in which the NHS 111 service has been introduced.
I hope the Minister will be able to tell the House how the Department of Health and the NHS are going to respond to the challenges they face, and how they propose to do that with thousands and thousands fewer staff than we had only a few years ago. I fear that things could be even worse than last winter, and we will be back with rising numbers of patients waiting on trolleys at A&E.
We have already had an A&E summer crisis, with more than 1 million people waiting more than four hours to be seen, all on the Minister’s watch. The problem is all of this Government’s own making, and they are not going to get away with trying to wriggle out of it. The Minister and the rest of his team would have us believe that it is everyone else’s problem—it is the doctors’ fault, and the fault of the nurses, the GPs, the porters, the radiographers, the support staff, the patients, or even the weather. It is too cold, or it is too warm, or it is the wrong time of the year. But it is this Government’s problem; it is down to mismanagement by this Conservative and Lib Dem coalition.
If the Minister is going to tell us the problem is caused by too many people going to A&E when they should go somewhere else, can he tell the House why the Government cut Labour’s extended opening hours for doctors’ surgeries and why they are closing NHS walk-in centres up and down the country? Can he confirm how many walk-in centres have closed since the Government came into office? Why did they close NHS Direct, and why did they introduce NHS 111?
My noble friend Lady McDonagh has got it right. We have a dangerous mix of incompetence and ideology. They want to get rid of the NHS, but they realise how unpopular that would be, so instead they pare down to the bone, to the minimum that they can get away with.
Earl Howe
I shall say more on Lewisham in a moment. This is a time-limited debate, and I hope that I may be allowed to conclude my speech.
The principles that I have just enunciated are further enshrined in the four reconfiguration tests first set down to the NHS in 2010, which all local reconfiguration plans should demonstrate. These are support from GP commissioners, strengthened public and patient engagements, clarity on the clinical evidence base, and support for patient choice.
Our reforms allow strategic decisions to be taken at the appropriate level. We are enabling clinical commissioners to make the changes that will deliver real improvements in health outcomes. That is the purpose of reconfiguration. Furthermore, local commissioners proposing significant service change should engage with NHS England throughout the process to ensure that any changes are well managed strategically and, crucially, that they will meet the four tests that I have just referred to.
Given the scale of change across the health system, it is important that local NHS organisations are now supported when redesigning their health services. We are working with our national partners, NHS England, the Trust Development Authority and Monitor, on the continuing design of the interfaces, roles and responsibilities of organisations in the new system. For example, stroke care in London, which has been centralised into eight hyper-acute stroke units, now provides 24 hours a day, seven days a week acute stroke care to patients regardless of where they live. Stroke mortality is now 20% lower in London than in the rest of the UK, and survivors, with lower levels of long-term disability, are experiencing a better quality of life. That is why we must allow the local NHS to continually challenge the status quo and look for the best way of serving its patients.
I turn specifically to accident and emergency departments and points raised by a number of noble Lords. The NHS is seeing more than 1 million additional patients in A&E compared to three years ago and, despite this additional workload, it is generally coping well. I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that we are meeting our four-hour A&E standard and have done since the end of April. The latest figures show that around 96% of patients were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of arrival. There are now 500 more A&E doctors in the NHS than there were under the previous Government. Trusts expect to hire 4,000 more nurses, due to the Francis effect, as a result of the public inquiry that the party opposite decided not to pursue.
I have heard many noble Lords describe the current situation as a crisis. I do not share that perception. The NHS is performing well under pressure. Dealing with an extra 1 million patients in A&E does, however, mean that we must look at the underlying causes. Providing urgent and emergency care for people is not just about A&E. It is about how the NHS works as a whole and how it works with other areas such as social care, and how it faces up to the challenge of an ageing population of more people with long-term conditions. Therefore, the Government are taking action to respond to the immediate winter pressures and, looking longer term, we will tackle the unsustainable increasing demand on the system.
NHS England, Monitor and the Trust Development Authority, working with ADASS, have been working together on the A&E improvement and winter planning since May. Staff across the service have worked extremely hard to prepare this year and are committed to making sure that their plans are robust and that patients will receive the services they should expect and deserve. This process was started earlier and is more comprehensive than in previous years. We are determined to do everything we can for the NHS to continue providing high-quality care to patients throughout the winter, which is why we are backing the system with additional funds in the short term to help local areas prepare for and manage additional pressure during the winter.
We have allocated £250 million of funding to NHS England to help cope with winter pressures, with another £250 million for 2014-15. There will also be an extra £150 million from within the NHS England existing budget this year to ensure that everywhere receives a fair share of the funding.
It is, however, clear that the current situation is unsustainable in the long term. That is why we asked Sir Bruce Keogh to lead a review of urgent and emergency care with the first phase published on 13 November, which was also roundly welcomed by the system, including, as noble Lords will be aware, by the NHS Confederation and the Royal College of Surgeons. There will be a further update in spring 2014.
The review is aimed at delivering system-wide change, not just in A&E but across all health and care services in England by concentrating specialist expertise where appropriate to ensure that patients with the most serious illnesses and injuries get the best possible care and ensuring that other services, such as primary and community care, are more responsive and delivered locally. This will mean that people will understand how to access the most appropriate treatment in the right place as close to home as possible.
The noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others referred to NHS 111. The introduction of the NHS 111 service is part of the wider revisions to the urgent care system to deliver a 24/7 urgent care service that ensures people receive the best care from the best person in the right place at the right time. This is not only government policy; it was a policy fully signed up to by the previous Government and initiated by them. Although NHS 111 has had a difficult start, we have backed the service with a £15 million fund to support it over the winter. NHS 111 now deals with more than half a million calls a month, and 97% of them are answered in under a minute. The first phase of the urgent and emergency care review sets out a significant expansion and enhancement of the NHS 111 service so that patients know to use the 111 number first time, every time, for the right advice or treatment.
NHS Direct, which was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, will continue to provide 111 services to patients until alternative arrangements can be made by commissioners. The transfer of NHS Direct’s 111 services is progressing well.
Together with NHS England, we are putting together a strategy focusing on the people who are the heaviest users of the NHS, vulnerable older people and those with multiple long-term conditions. Here I am addressing particularly the points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Kakkar, and my noble friend Lord Selsdon. The vulnerable older people’s plan will focus on improving out-of-hospital care services centred on the role of general practice in leading proactive, person-centred care within a broader team and is due to be published later this year. A key element of the plan is the provision of joined-up care for vulnerable older people, spanning GPs, social services, and A&E departments themselves, which is overseen by an accountable GP. The aim of proactive care management is to help keep people healthy and independent longer.
A number of noble Lords referred to the workforce challenge. Health Education England is working with stakeholders on a number of innovations to help alleviate the workforce problems in emergency medicine. Through the Emergency Medicine Workforce Implementation Group, Health Education England will work to develop alternative training routes for emergency medicine and a range of mid-level non-doctor clinician posts. They will work with NHS England on potential workforce and training requirements.
I would like to address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, about Lewisham. Lewisham’s A&E is not closing. The TSA proposals were a response, as he is well aware, to a very difficult, long-standing challenge facing south London. The new Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust must now work with its commissioners and community to deliver a clinically and financially sustainable future. As regards north- west London, which the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred to, the Secretary of State has endorsed the recommendations of the Independent Review Panel, and it is now for CCGs in north-west London, working with NHS England, to take this forward. The decisions here were supported by all the commissioners in the area and all the medical directors in the trusts and all but one of the relevant local authorities.
My noble friend Lady Manzoor spoke about public awareness and engagement. I agreed with a lot of what she said. Through our reforms we have strengthened local partnership arrangements through health and well-being boards. These will provide a forum where commissioners of services, local authorities and providers can discuss the future shape of health services. As I have said, local cases for clinical change should be driven from a local level. We know that these reconfigurations work best when a partnership approach underlies them.
The NHS is one of the greatest institutions in the world. Ensuring that it is sustainable and that it serves the best interests of patients sometimes means taking tough decisions, including on the provision of urgent and emergency care. However—and this is the thought which I leave with your Lordships—those decisions are made only when the local NHS, working with local people and local authorities, is convinced that what it proposes is absolutely in the best interests of its patients.
NHS: London
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Earl Howe
Largely, the judgment by NHS England will be made by local area teams—but not in isolation. It has to be a collaborative exercise, which is my overall answer to my noble friend’s second question. The successful integration of services must depend on close collaboration between the different constituent parts of the NHS but also with adult social care and local authorities. It is striking that already we are seeing this happening in north-west London, as we are in many other parts of the country. For the system to work as we want it to, all the constituent parts need to be effective and efficient. The integration of services, which is one example of how the NHS can become more productive in the future, as well as more clinically effective for patients, is an essential way of ensuring that we have a sustainable NHS in the future.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
Will the noble Earl confirm, first, that there will be no further appeal in respect of Lewisham hospital after the decisions of two courts; and, secondly, that there will be no attempt to change the law in respect of Lewisham hospital? What lessons have been learnt by the noble Earl and his ministerial team that they can apply to what is going on in north-west London? We are all aware that the Minister has never visited Lewisham hospital; the last ministerial visit was in May 2010. Will he tell the House—if not from the Dispatch Box, then by writing and placing a copy in the Library—when Ministers last visited the hospitals in north-west London that have been mentioned?
Earl Howe
I can certainly find out the answer to that last question. As regards the appeal, we have only just received the judgment, as the noble Lord will know. But that is only the outline judgment. We have not received the full text. It is important that we read that and inwardly digest it before we finally decide on the way forward. The lessons of Lewisham are very clear. I confirm that we shall not be legislating around Lewisham and the recent provisions in the Care Bill were not retrospective, as the noble Lord is aware. I have not personally visited Lewisham, which is clearly an omission that I should at some point rectify, but it is important for me to put on the record that the concerns expressed by the people of Lewisham are, and have always been, entirely understandable. Ministers greatly respect the wish of local residents to see their hospital thriving, as it always has in the past. Nevertheless, as I said earlier, Lewisham and Greenwich now have a challenge. There is a financial issue that needs to be addressed and I hope that commissioners and providers, acting together, can do that successfully over the months ahead.
Care Bill [HL]
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, in part, I support the Minister because, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said, the Government have a problem. We know that for many years there have been attempts to close hospitals that need to be closed and it can take 15 years for that to happen. If the Government can come forward with a sensible, reasonable way of making those decisions, I will back it all the way. However, I find myself agreeing with the idea that a rather quick fix designed to achieve some solution to the Lewisham problem is not the way to do it. This is a national problem of considerable significance. I ask the Minister to take this away, think hard about it and come back with a good set of proposals to help this country close hospitals when they need to be closed. I would certainly be there behind him.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, although I sit in this House as Lord Kennedy of Southwark, I actually live in Lewisham, very close to the hospital. I agree with the comments made by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. This is a major change of policy being sneaked through the door by the Government. I am amazed that the Minister has brought his amendment today when we are just a few days away from the case being heard in the Court of Appeal—it will be heard next week, I believe.
I live close to the hospital and I refer noble Lords to my declaration of interest that on a voluntary basis I chair a small committee in the hospital. Whatever the problems of the South London Healthcare NHS Trust, I cannot adequately describe to noble Lords the sense of injustice, unfairness and hurt about what is being imposed by the administrator. We have a good local hospital, which is supported by the local community, delivers on its targets and objectives and is financially solvent, but the administrator came along and ripped the heart out of the hospital.
I contend that the purpose of this amendment is to try to stop the campaign that we have seen in Lewisham over the past few months. The campaign has united the community like never before. We had more than 25,000 people on our march. Streets are plastered with posters to save the hospital. Any political party would be envious of the posters up in people’s windows about this campaign. Our local campaign is chaired by a local GP and has brought together health professionals and the local community.
Will the Minister tell the House whether he has visited Lewisham hospital? I asked him that question earlier this year; I know that he had not been then and hope that he has been there since to see the amount of local support and what a good local hospital it is. More important, there is no support at all for what the Government propose today. I hope that the House will support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and reject the amendment of the noble Earl.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I find myself in a strange position, because I agree in part with the amendment moved by the noble Earl and in part with the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, although that is not a solution.
I agree with the noble Earl that we need to find a way of reconfiguring NHS services. That reconfiguration cannot just be done through dealing with failing hospitals. It must include other hospitals which currently seem to be delivering good-quality services. We have to find a way out of that. The question is therefore whether the amendment allows us to move forward with reconfiguring NHS services. This is where I find myself more in tune with the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, that it may not and that more is required.
Another concern I have is that the commissioners may express views. I would like some explanation of why the commissioners of the NHS foundation trust are to be treated separately from those who commission services from other hospitals. Another issue is that, if the commissioners disagree, NHS England would make the decision. That means that, ipso facto, they will agree with a special administrator—or they will not. In that case, what happens?
Another issue is consultation. Clearly, none of the configuration can occur smoothly unless the public are consulted. At what point will the special administrator consult both the public served by the failing hospital and the public served by the hospital that is not failing but whose services may require reconfiguration?
In summary, therefore, there is a need for amendments that will allow us to move forward with the reconfiguration of services throughout England. In that respect, I am with the noble Earl, but I wonder if he needs to go a bit further. He might consider looking at this further and tabling more amendments at a later stage.