Health and Care Bill

Debate between Lord Scriven and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

Committee stage
Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 85 and 88 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins.

We must be clear. The previous two speeches highlighted the elephant in the room: you cannot have integration on a sustainable basis unless you reform health and social care together. We have to be honest with ourselves that this Bill is predominantly about the reform of healthcare.

That was highlighted eloquently in the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in response to my noble friend Lady Barker, about who should commission sexual health services. These have been lobbed to the side of the commissioning silo but it should be about how to break down this silo so that we have joint and sustainable commissioning around outcomes, rather than around which silo or which part of the health and social care framework should deal with it. It is the elephant in the room, but we are where we are so we must make this Bill better knowing that that is the real issue.

This is about three little words: social care services. It is clear to those who understand health and social care that the Bill has been written predominantly through the lens of healthcare. I do not blame anybody for that but clearly this is a healthcare commissioning reform Bill, with a little tinkering with the structure, and does not deal predominantly with those people who do not understand social care—unless they are asking for an NHS long-term care package, when the argument tends to be about not the care provided but the funding, including who is going to fund what part. That is when it affects people’s outcomes. Those three little words are really important, which is why the noble Baroness’s amendments are important. If they were accepted, the Bill would actually say that social care service and health outcomes are jointly important.

It is important that this is about integration. The noble Baronesses, Lady Pitkeathley and Lady Hollins, said that there is a significant difference between collaboration and integration. You can have two people collaborate but, if their silos send them in different directions, the outcomes will not be joint. The real issue is how we bring about integration. It will not solve all the problems but it will help to bring about the first stage of integration if you have a joint framework on outcomes for which both healthcare and social care are held accountable. That is why Amendment 88 is so important.

The Bill’s intention goes in the right direction but the three amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, will significantly help in that journey. They will not solve the problems fully but they are an important way to say to people who work in health and social care that they will be held responsible for the outcomes of individuals, whether their needs come under healthcare or social care. That is why I support these amendments.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 101B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Layard. Before I speak to it, I want to say how much I agree with the sentiment expressed by noble Lords on all Benches that true integration will be achieved only if the Bill is as much about social care as it is about health. It is such a fundamental point that I wanted to underline it.

I see Amendment 101B as an important continuation of our deliberations last week on parity of esteem because “parity of esteem” are simply meaningless words unless they are reflected in the provision of funding. First, like the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, I acknowledge the welcome fact that NHS England has met its commitment to ensure that the increase in local funding for mental health is at least in line with the overall increase in the money available to CCGs through the mental health investment standard. It is also welcome that, from 2019-20 onwards, as part of the NHS long-term plan, that standard also includes a further commitment that local funding for mental health will grow by an additional percentage increment to reflect the additional mental health funding being made available to CCGs. I recognise all of that.

But—and it is a big but—the investment standard relates only to CCGs, and that total spending had already declined in 2019-20 compared with 2018-19 as a percentage of total NHSE revenue spend. Also, given the urgent need for healthcare, which, as other noble Lords have said, has been much exacerbated by the pandemic, this amendment would help strengthen the consideration of mental health services when large amounts of money are announced for Covid recovery—this is welcome—but it all falls outside the remit of the mental health investment standard.

We need to know how much of the money is currently going to preventive and community services—prevention is the overarching theme of this group of amendments—as opposed to acute services. We also need to know whether the spending increases we are seeing are simply because crisis services are so in demand; indeed, they are overwhelmed in some cases. We know from a recent survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists that two-fifths of patients awaiting mental health treatment contact emergency or crisis services, with one in nine ending up in A&E. That is not a sustainable position.