Carers: Health and Well-being

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is quite right; it is hard to imagine what the burden must be on those young carers who are looking after parents and siblings. Young carers are explicitly mentioned in the action plan; again, I point to two commitments in that. First, there is a young carers identification project, which is working with Carers UK to make sure that we can find young carers. Secondly, the DfE has committed in its children in need review to make sure that young carers are getting the educational support they need in school and out of school to make sure that their educational outcomes do not suffer.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, almost 50,000 babies, children and young people need palliative care, yet children’s hospices receive less statutory funding than adult hospices, and the lack of collaboration between support services is a major challenge. Carers and those they care for would benefit if we had a children’s palliative care strategy that was family-centred and had a holistic focus on health, education and social care. Does the Minister agree with that?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

Children’s hospices do an extraordinary job. They get less statutory funding as a percentage of their total; there are good reasons for that, both historically and to do with the type of care they provide. The Government are providing £11 million of support in 2018-19 through the children’s hospices grant to support them, in addition to funding from local clinical commissioning groups. But I will take his proposal for a palliative care strategy back to my right honourable friend the Minister for Care. I know that she is very interested in this issue.