Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Newton of Braintree and Baroness Hussein-Ece

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

I should like to ask a couple of questions to clarify where the debate is going. As my noble friend Lady Tonge said, for a number of years some groups have found it almost impossible to get a GP. It is almost a case of GPs selecting the people they want on their lists; it is an unwritten code. That is why asylum-seeking families, refugee families and others with very high needs will always find it difficult to get a GP, and I want to ask the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, how her amendment will assist that.

Equally, as has already been mentioned, areas of high need have in my experience always been in inner cities, where it has been difficult for some people to register with a GP. We know that attendance at A&E departments has become extremely high in some areas—almost unsustainably so—and I want to ask how the amendment will address that too.

There are also families who are placed by local authorities in temporary accommodation in other areas. Currently, a local authority is responsible for such a family—for example, social services or family support may be involved with the children. However, if that family is placed in another borough way out of the catchment area, I am not sure who their GP will be. Perhaps the Minister can respond to that as well and say how that would work with a local authority having responsibility for a family placed well outside the area. Would that family still be able to get support by going on to a GP list in the new area? Would that connection be made? Over the years we have worked very hard to make sure that social care, healthcare and local authorities all work together in partnership. Perhaps we could have an explanation of how it is going to work when families with very high needs are spread around.

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, your Lordships will have realised by now that I am basically a simple-minded soul. I am struggling to discover what this issue is but it seems to come down to one specific point: do clinical commissioning groups have the same responsibilities as primary care trusts for planning services for all the people that they think live in their area? That is the core question. Do they have an area base—I dare to risk upsetting my noble friend—for their activities? I understand that it has been decreed that no practice can be part of two clinical commissioning groups; they cannot overlap and have to be distinct and separate. In a sense they are the same as primary care trusts. Do they have a responsibility to plan and provide services for all the people known to be in that area? The rest of this is all peripheral. I require services from the NHS both in London and at home in Essex, and I normally get them. But people in Westminster, where my flat is, know perfectly well that there are lots of second homes in Westminster, and presumably the health authorities and primary care trusts know that as well and plan on that basis. It is a simple question: does somebody have a responsibility to plan and provide services for all the people in their area? Yes or no?