Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan

Lord Porter of Spalding Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord. We have a manifesto pledge about five years of healthier living. I am keen to do exactly that, to say, “Okay, let’s unpack this—how can we make that realistic?”. We have all talked about being realistic. What are the causes of death or ill health that we need to get on top of? I mentioned cardiovascular disease earlier. We need to quickly address that because there is a cohort of people of my age who have missed out. Obesity is a clear thing. It is not just the treatments but everything we talk about in terms of supermarkets. I know that there is some discussion in the House on whether we have gone far enough on some of those things, but the action we have taken is hitting the big numbers. It is hitting about 95% of the planned reduction in calorific intake; we are seeing that have an impact already. There is also anti-smoking; I am keen to make that into a coherent plan. We all know that we can spend more and more money on hospitals and the health service, but we will have healthier lifestyles only if we can get up stream on the problem and talk about protection.

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a non-executive director of a care company and lead Peer for the Local Government Association.

It is great that politicians are trying to sort out problems with the health service, because those problems have largely been created by politicians—national politicians from both sides of the other Chamber. Clearly, the last Labour Government’s disastrous changes to GP contracts exacerbated the situation we are living in now. The even worse contracts for construction companies to build new hospitals at exorbitant prices were bizarre and are currently impacting the health service.

The coalition Government and this Government are responsible for the chronic underfunding of social care services. We have all contributed to people not being able to see the right GP or whatever at the start of the process, and we are now contributing to people not being able to get out of hospital.

That is not really what I wanted to say, even though I have just said it. I live in Lincolnshire. If a member of staff somewhere in the Lincolnshire health network has suggested, contrary to the Government’s position of increasing hospital beds, that they have to reduce their hospital beds, one way they could save some money is by deleting the post of the person who suggested that. That is probably a good place to start, because a lot of people want to use acute services but cannot because some of the budget is being diverted away to people dressed like me rather than to somebody dressed in those suits they wear in hospitals.

I am quite simple and do not understand why I saw a picture on the news the other day of 40 ambulances queueing up outside a hospital with 80 members of staff and only 40 patients inside the ambulances. Why can we not put up a big inflatable building of some description, offload the 40 people from the ambulances with 40 of the staff, and let the other 40 staff drive 20 ambulances back out again? Nobody seems to be controlling the resources that are being used, even though we all admit that they are scarce.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I will take it in reverse order. We do have the ability to stand up that capacity quickly so that the ambulances can discharge. I have already ordered a number of those, and some are ready to go, to provide exactly that capacity. Others are coming on stream in the coming weeks, so we are rapidly responding to the exact point that my noble friend raises.

Just as important—I am glad to have the opportunity to talk a bit more about this—is that a lot of the time ambulances do not need to bring the person to A&E. The mental health ambulances we are introducing, or the falls service ambulances that every ICB now has to introduce and have running every day, are critical. They can go there, right the person who has fallen and set them back up again. That needs only one person, not a big ambulance. That sort of care in the community—solving those problems and the right access—is critical in this situation.

On Lincolnshire, I will find out. The key thing here is making sure that we are expanding capacity in terms of beds.

Children in Care: CAMHS Waiting Times

Lord Porter of Spalding Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I would agree. In any case, especially where there is high demand in an area, we need a form of triaging so that we can agree the clearest areas of priority, such as those mentioned.

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend has quite rightly mentioned the amount of money that the current Government are finding to attach to this issue, and predecessors of his at the Dispatch Box would have all said similar things. The country is investing billions of pounds in children’s mental health, quite rightly—that has a huge effect on people’s lives, and it also has a huge knock-on cost to other parts of the Government’s spend if it is not done properly. What assurance can my noble friend give to the House that those billions of pounds are being spent properly on the services they are being given for, and are not being used to subsidise bad management decisions such as PFI contracts?

Coronavirus Bill

Lord Porter of Spalding Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard - continued) & 2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as detailed in the register.

If anybody ever doubted the statement that we could not have a truly sustainable National Health Service without a truly sustainable care service, this pandemic will write it in neon lights. I am sure that the whole House will ensure that it is heard loud and clear by the Government at every opportunity.

Unlike the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Scriven, I have not been the leader of Sheffield City Council, but I am still the leader of South Holland District Council. I put on record my gratitude from a first-hand sighting of the fantastic work that local government staff up and down the country are doing. Yesterday, I returned from here to the flatlands and had the pleasure of making my own spaghetti bolognese because my wife is looking after my mother-in-law—not generally the best of statements. While I was doing that, and watching the Prime Minister on the telly, our gold commander was on the phone trying to interfere with my concentration by digesting what the Prime Minister was saying as he was saying it. We started the conversation again at 6.30 this morning, based on the actions we had finished talking about at 10.30 last night. Local government staff are doing a fantastic job everywhere.

I have two other relatively minor points to make. First, we are rightly concerned about people being made homeless for not paying their rent because of this. One way that the Government can minimise the impact of that is by making sure that the rents they currently pay to tenants are paid directly to landlords, rather than risk them being misused in the process. That would make it less likely that we end up with a big spike in evictions in four or five months.

Secondly, does the Minister think that these powers go far enough? I know that every other noble Lord has said that they probably go too far, but I am concerned that we might be back in six or eight weeks looking for additional powers.

NHS: Winter Funding

Lord Porter of Spalding Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

Nine out of 10 type 1 A&E departments now have streaming in place, so the money has gone into that. However, obviously we want to get to 100% so that is where the extra funding will go, but it is already having an impact. A full quantitative evaluation will take place at the end of the winter.

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that this Government have spent more on the National Health Service than any of their predecessors—considerably more as a proportion of our income, particularly in a world where money is in short supply? Does he agree that the only way to get a truly sustainable health service is to make sure that adult social care is funded to an adequate level? He has already acknowledged that the delays in transfers to social care that result in bed blocking have been reduced, indeed at twice the rate of the delays caused by health service internal delays. From what we have seen over the past few months, it is clear that money invested in social care is the best way of helping the health service.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for pointing out the fact that no Government have funded the NHS like this one. Indeed, the proportion of public spending taken up by NHS spending has been increasing in the last seven years, contrary to the views held by those opposite. On the impact of adult social care, my noble friend speaks with great wisdom. We know that money invested in the social care sector has a big impact. It already has, as he pointed out. That is why it is meaningful that the department has taken on full control over social care policies so we can push ahead with integration, which, as we know, is the right way to solve these problems.