Health and Social Care Bill

Lord Ribeiro Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Lords Chamber

This clause, which fundamentally is a great improvement on what has gone before, is important because it gets the matter into the Secretary of State’s duties. The phrase “have regard to” is quite powerful but I wonder whether it quite reflects the determination that we have all felt over the years when we have read the work of Michael Marmot and various groups, going right back to the Black report, and to ask why we do not have something a little stronger that gives teeth to local commissioning groups to examine these issues very carefully locally.

[Lord Ribeiro]

I want to pick up on something that the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, mentioned; namely, elderly patients perhaps being denied treatment. There is a real danger in not recognising that the clinical decision is based on the quality of the patients rather than their age, which is important. We are all aware of 60 year-olds who are basically crumbling with significant code morbidity and who would not be considered for surgery. Yet, there are many fit and self-caring people in their late 80s who may fracture a hip and would be worthy of surgical treatment. In fact, many people in your Lordships’ House in that age group may have benefited from that type of treatment. It is very important that we should see this in the context of clinical need rather than just one of age.

Similarly, as regards cancer and the point I made about the older generation, not that long ago in the United States a carcinoma of the prostate was open season for anyone to have a radical prostatectomy practically at any age, be it 80 or 90 years old. The morbidity and mortality associated with that radical surgery was very high. The American College of Surgeons, at recent meetings I attended, recognised that patients over the age of 75 should not be offered this type of surgery unless there is a very good reason. It is also a well known fact that 80 per cent of males aged 80 and over actually have—not just probably have—carcinoma of the prostate. But on whether they should have treatment for it, they are more likely to die from other conditions than from their cancer. Although age is important, it should not be a specific criterion for determining whether treatment is given or not.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I, too, should like to speak in support of this raft of amendments which are all designed, to use the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, to give greater teeth to reducing health inequalities. We have already heard various statistics from a number of noble Lords and those for life expectancy are generally the most stark. The statistic that means the most to me relates to London, probably because that is where I live; namely, that the life expectancy of men ranges from 71 years in one ward in the London Borough of Haringey to 88 years in one ward in Kensington and Chelsea. That is a huge difference of 17 years. It is worth also pointing out that even within Kensington and Chelsea, there is a difference of nearly 12 years in life expectancy across different parts of the borough.

As many noble Lords have said, there is a whole range of reasons for this, including the social and the economic. It is one of the things that underline the critical need in our debates to put more focus on public health interventions. I also very much welcome the establishment and the role of Public Health England, and the fact that the public health function at a local level will sit with local authorities.

In discussing the need to strengthen these duties, it is important to recognise and welcome that having explicit duties placed for the first time on the Secretary of State, the NHS Commissioning Board and the clinical commissioning groups is a landmark, representing a major shift from the current position. There is something very significant about the whole raft of these NHS reforms.

The phrase “have regard to” health inequalities for the clinical commissioning groups is not sufficient because we need to make sure that they act and behave to secure real improvements, which need to be in both access to NHS services and in outcomes. I want those CCGs to account publicly for their progress, not simply as part of normal accountability but as part of sharing good practice and workforce development, and in the training of NHS employees. It should become part of the everyday currency and language of the NHS, part of the DNA of the way in which the health service operates. I believe that this strengthening is necessary if the NHS reforms are to become a real game-changer for some of the most disadvantaged group in society—to borrow from the words of the public health White Paper, Improving the Health of the Poorest Fastest.

Perhaps I may give an example in relation to homeless people who experience some of the worst health inequalities of any group in society. They are more likely to die young, live with a long-term condition, have multiple health problems and have mental health or substance use issues. They are also far less likely to have regular contact with a GP or other health professional and are much more likely to access healthcare through A&E, which is inappropriate and, as we know, causes all sorts of problems for A&E departments. In short, they are the most likely to have very poor health and the least likely to benefit from what the NHS has to offer.

Of course, many services are needed to help homeless people to improve their outcomes, including housing, employment, family support and other things. But it is particularly important that the NHS is able to cater for the needs of these groups. Appropriate services are far more likely to be commissioned where clinical commissioning groups have a duty to take account of these health inequalities in their plans and reporting mechanisms and the standards to which they are held to account, and that they are ensuring that these arrangements are incentivised through the commissioning arrangements.

I very much support the principle of the amendments put forward and I look forward to hearing the Government giving an even stronger commitment to tackling health inequalities and to making this a key outcome of the overall package of reforms that we are discussing.