Health and Care Bill

Alicia Kearns Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way. On the duties of integrated care boards, he knows that one of my grave concerns about health inequalities relates to rural settings. In Rutland, our citizens receive care in Peterborough, Stamford, Kettering, Corby, Leicester and sometimes even beyond. The big problem at the moment is that their health records are not shared across those different clinical commissioning groups, leading to big problems with them getting the care and support they need. Will ICBs be able to help us to overcome these issues? I have been lobbying the Department of Health and Social Care for months to help us sort out this problem.

[Edward Argar]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that under the changes we are putting in place through the integrated care systems, ICBs will continue to be able to commission services and to send patients to hospitals outside the ICS area. They will also be obliged to co-operate and work with other organisations in the patient’s best interests. We are setting this alongside the broader work that we are doing in the Department on the interoperability of data. I hope that that has reassured her to a degree.

We are also committed to supporting research, and I ask the House to agree to Lords amendments 6, 15, 26 and 28, which further embed research and provide increased clarity, transparency and oversight in respect of ICBs, NHS England and the Secretary of State’s research duties.