Home Care Workers

Debate between Andrew George and Liz Kendall

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Liz Kendall]

Care and communication is vital for people with all sorts of frailties and conditions, but particularly for those with dementia, as carers try to keep their memories and brains going. Those people often feel lost in a fog, and having some kind of contact is vital to keeping them going, so it is important.

We have heard about the problems of call cramming, with carers being rushed, getting late to one client and leaving early for the next. Older people are worried when they are left waiting on their own, and staff are frustrated that they have to rush in and out.

The third issue that has been raised is zero-hours contracts. As hon. Members have said, such contracts are very bad for workers, because they find it difficult to budget and plan their lives. Zero-hours contracts make it hard to attract people to the sector. They are also terrible for the users—older and disabled people who do not get continuity of care. I cannot imagine someone coming round to get me out of my bed and take me to the shower. I would be naked and they would be washing me, but I would not know who they were, because they would often be different people each time. We would not put up with that for ourselves, and we should not expect it for older people either.

The fourth issue is the lack of training, which is a real problem in dementia care. It is only since having known people with dementia that I have fully understood why they are seen to get aggressive: they do not, but they are frustrated because they cannot remember things. Carers need detailed training for that.

The fifth issue is the vicious downward spiral or vicious circle that leads to poor care for users of services and real problems for staff. The last UK Homecare Association report states that vacancy rates are at 21%, so we are simply repeating the problems.

In my remaining time, I want to make three comments about why that is all happening and what we need to do. Clearly, demand has increased in recent years. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) said, when local councils’ budgets are being cut by a third, when adult social care is 40% of their budget on average and their biggest discretionary spend, and when the money that the Government say they have transferred from the NHS has not been ring-fenced, it is inevitable that care budgets are being cut. Figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government—the Government’s own figures—show that more than £1.3 billion has been cut from older people’s social care budgets since the coalition came to power.

There are a few deeper things going on. First, the caring profession is mostly delivered by women and is low-skilled. Such professions have always been neglected in the past, so that is a concern. Secondly, the problem is invisible: it concerns isolated staff and isolated, frail older people who do not have a voice. In talking about the care crisis, I always tell people that I have received five letters about the care crisis in my constituency and 99 about saving forests. I am passionate about forests, but getting only five letters on the care crisis shows that this is an issue of isolation and we should stand up about it.

[Andrew George]

Like the hon. Lady, I have shadowed care workers in my constituency. One point that often comes across is that when I ask those who pontificate from on high—criticising poor care standards and implying that it relates to the character of the people providing the service—whether they would be prepared to do this job, no one wants to do it, even at twice the salary.

[Liz Kendall]

I completely agree. That is why Unison’s report, “Time to Care”, which has given people a voice, is important.

The third fundamental issue is that our NHS and care system have not kept pace with changing demographics—people living longer—and changing needs and expectations. Families cannot always cope with caring for elderly relatives, and older people want to stay in their homes for longer. In the past, it was not the business of the NHS and social care to think about the home; its business was always about sending people to institutions.

What should be done? I want to raise four matters with the Minister. First, I know that the Low Pay Commission has looked at the minimum wage. Will he confirm, however, that as my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East said, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has ruled that it is not legal to pay for travel time? If that is the case, what is being done about that? What action has been taken? In any other area, there would be legal action to enforce the minimum wage, so what is being done?

Secondly, I know that the Minister wants a shift to commissioning for outcomes, rather than by the minute. That is the Government’s policy, but how will he make that work in action? What are his levers over local councils? Thirdly, it is time to have a national strategy for improving training for home care workers. What are the Government’s plans?

Finally, although the announcement on the Dilnot cap is a step forward, Dilnot has always said, as the Minister will know, that proper funding is needed in the current system, which this Government have not produced. I know that he will be in intense conversations with the Treasury over the future budget. If, following the Budget, the Government decide to pull over more money from the NHS to social care, will he ring-fence that money this time?

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Andrew George and Liz Kendall

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

I am going to finish this point.

The Minister of State, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), said that all and any changes to those provisions were “unnecessary”, and denied that there was any lack of effective governance. I would remind Liberal Democrat Members that the Minister argued that putting a board in place or dealing with conflicts of interest would mean that clinical commissioning groups would fail to be “liberated”. Those criticisms were among the many issues that were supposed to be dealt with when the Government embarked on their now infamous “pause” in the Bill’s progress last spring, but they were not. The Government were therefore forced to return to the issue in the other place. However, the amendments before us are still weak, incomplete and ineffective.

The Government say that clinical commissioning groups will have to include in their constitutions how they intend to manage conflicts of interest. However, I am afraid the Government are deluded if they think that the national NHS Commissioning Board will be able adequately to scrutinise whether hundreds of clinical commissioning groups are properly implementing the measures in thousands of contracts, particularly when the board has already taken on so many other huge responsibilities for managing the Government’s new system. Giving Monitor powers to scrutinise clinical commissioning groups is inadequate for the same reason. Saying that Monitor can deem a clinical commissioning group’s contract to be ineffective, if it thinks that conflicts of interest have not been dealt with, will in effect mean closing the stable door once the horse has bolted. Indeed, there could be huge problems on the ground, as a provider may have already started delivering services to NHS patients by the time Monitor takes its decision.

Labour’s Front-Bench team in the other place tabled a comprehensive amendment to deal with conflicts of interest in clinical commissioning groups. It would have ensured a code of conduct for how clinical commissioning groups register, manage and report on conflicts of interests among its members and employees, and imposed a duty on CCG members to abide by the code. The amendment would have ensured that no member of a clinical commissioning group could take part in discussion or decisions concerning any provider of services with which that person had a registrable interest, and allowed the Secretary of State to appoint an adjudicator to investigate complaints about any breaches of the code, with a range of financial and other sanctions available, including the ability to suspend or remove a person from the clinical commissioning group. However, the Government rejected that comprehensive amendment, saying that such sanctions were unnecessary.

The Government have agreed to Lords amendment 31, which at least says that there must be a register of interests for a group, along with its governing body, sub-committee and employees, and that the register must be kept up to date, with information updated within 28 days. That change is welcome, but it does not go anywhere near far enough in ensuring that conflicts of interest are robustly dealt with. That is why our amendment (a) to Lords amendment 31 would ensure that members of a clinical commissioning group would not be able to take part in discussions or decisions about services in which they had declared a registered interest, which is the same format as in local government.

[Andrew George]

Although we welcome Lords amendment 31, which was tabled by my noble Friend Baroness Barker in another place, the hon. Lady’s amendment (a) proposes to go a stage further. I personally welcome that, but did she notice that the Minister, in justifying the Government’s position that it would not practically be applicable, gave the example of a CCG commissioning from all its membership? Does that not fundamentally undermine the argument that clinical commissioning groups cannot be conflicted per se?

[Liz Kendall]

I am simply arguing in amendment (a) that the same robust mechanisms that exist in local government should apply in this case. The hon. Gentleman will have to have a conversation with his own Ministers about what they have said in response.

The potential for conflicts of interest under the Bill is so great, and the amount of public money being spent by clinical commissioning groups so substantial, that the Government should have put in place far tougher provisions to deal with conflicts of interest. The Deputy Prime Minister has failed to guarantee the integrity of clinical commissioning groups, as he claimed in his joint letter with the noble Baroness Williams to Liberal Democrat Members. The integrity of clinical commissioning groups cannot be guaranteed by having only two lay members who will not even be independently appointed, nor can it be guaranteed through guidance for GPs, which the General Medical Council is currently developing. Indeed, I would argue that the GMC’s role should be to ensure professional integrity in the treatment of individual patients, not with regard to organisational misconduct, which would be a complete change in its current role. Nor can the integrity of clinical commissioning groups be guaranteed by national bodies such as the NHS Commissioning Board and Monitor, which will be too distant, too remote and too busy dealing with the fallout from other aspects of the Government’s Bill to be able effectively to address the potential conflicts of interest that clinical commissioning groups will face every day.

This issue might not have received as much public or media attention as other aspects of the Bill, but it will become significant in future, as patients and taxpayers struggle to determine whether their best interests—not the financial interests of GPs—are at the heart of the NHS. Examples of that have already come to light. In October last year, the Haxby practice in York wrote to its patients to say that a range of minor treatments would no longer be available on the NHS, but that they could be carried out privately at a number of clinics, including one owned by the practice itself. Those treatments included the removal of skin tags, at a cost of £56.30, and the treatment of benign tumours at a charge of £243.20.

Dr Richard Vautrey, of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, has rightly said that

“the direction of travel in NHS policy, particularly combined with the financial situation, does increase the risk of conflicts of interest for GPs which is one of the reasons the BMA is so concerned about the Health and Social Care Bill.”

Similarly, the NHS Confederation and the Royal College of General Practitioners have felt forced to issue guidance to GPs on how they should manage conflicts of interest, because they believe that the arrangements will become more complex under the Government’s plans. The Lords amendments before us are not robust enough to deal with this. It is a real concern for GPs that they will be unable to deal with conflicts of interest. That is what they are saying, and they need to be protected. The Government should support our amendment, because that would enable that to happen.

[Andrew George]

I congratulate my noble Friends Baroness Jolly, Baroness Barker, Lord Marks, Baroness Williams, Baroness Tyler and Baroness Northover on putting in a tremendous amount of work during the Bill’s various stages to negotiate and table amendments to advance the arguments that my Liberal Democrat Friends and I have expressed concern about. I have already put on record the fact that, although some of those amendments represent important strides towards making the Bill less bad, the changes still do not satisfy me to the extent that I feel that the Bill should be entitled to go forward from this, the elected House, as a piece of legislation. Unfortunately, that is not an argument that I am going to win, but I wanted to put the point on record.

Lords amendment 31 represents an important step forward, but it will merely provide a sticking plaster in what will be a fundamentally challenging scenario. The clinical commissioning groups represent a crumbling pillar in the edifice of the legislation. The big weakness at the centre of the CCGs is the fact that their members will, collectively and individually, be conflicted in almost all circumstances, and they will be unable to escape from that.

The Minister emphasised that point further when he told the House why he could not accept the amendment tabled by those on the Labour Front Bench. He told us that members of a CCG should not take part in certain discussions and decisions, even though they had declared an interest, because the groups would, on occasion, be commissioning for all their members. In those circumstances, a CCG would be incapable of making a decision because none of its board members or general members could be brought in to help because they would all be conflicted. That demonstrates a fundamental weakness in the legislation. My noble Friend Baroness Barker tabled an excellently drafted amendment to deal with that problem, but she was working within very limited parameters. The amendment would simply provide a sticking plaster for a crumbling edifice that will be unable to hold up this policy. I have a fundamental concern about the way in which the legislation will work in this regard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew George]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady’s arguments about the structure and funding of local healthwatch bodies and HealthWatch England. I ask this question not to be deliberately mischievous, but in view of her comments and criticisms: what is the preferred option of the Labour party for those scrutiny bodies?

[Liz Kendall]

I would encourage the hon. Gentleman to read the Opposition Front Bench amendment tabled in the House of Lords, which set out how we could have a separate independent, body with clear lines of accountability to local healthwatch organisations. That is the policy of the Opposition. Unfortunately, however, that amendment was not accepted.

National Voices represents 150 patient groups. I was interested that the Minister said that the Richmond Group of charities somehow supported everything that the Government were doing in this area. However, I should remind the House that National Voices includes groups such as Asthma UK, Arthritis Care, the British Heart Foundation, Breast Cancer Care, Carers UK, Cancer Research UK, Diabetes UK, Dementia UK, Mencap, Mind, Macmillan Cancer Support, Rethink Mental Illness, the Stroke Association and many others. Those groups are saying that the Government are setting HealthWatch up to fail, because it will not provide a strong enough voice for patients and the public.

Interestingly, officials within the Government’s own Department are saying the same thing. Hon. Members will know that the Government have refused to publish the transition risk register, but today I have been passed the risk register from the Department of Health’s programme board for HealthWatch. It is marked “Restricted”, and it sets out clearly what the Department’s officials see as the risks involved in the Government’s proposals on HealthWatch. It deals with high risk in terms of impact, as well as with likelihood, so it does involve prediction.

The risk register says that there is a high risk that

“existing LINks members and volunteers become disenchanted about the new arrangements for local HealthWatch and leave the system”

because of “insufficient consultation”. It goes on to say that there is a high risk that local authorities

“will not invest in establishing effective relationships with existing LINks and other community organisations”

because the process has been poorly managed. It states that there is a high risk that there will be a “narrow engagement group” and that HealthWatch

“doesn’t work effectively with providers and commissioners. HW is not fully representative.”

It identifies the cause for that as the engagement process having been “insufficiently inclusive”. It sees a further high risk in relation to HealthWatch England:

“The establishment of the HWE committee within CQC is either too isolated or too prescribed by DH/CQC plans.”

The cause is identified:

“Early design processes for establishing HWE do not engage broad range of partners resulting to ineffective regulations being laid.”

Those ineffective regulations are being laid by this Government, according to the risk register of the Department of Health’s own HealthWatch programme board.

Some of the Lords amendments in this group would make minor improvements to the Bill in relation to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and to the functioning of the information centre. I want to return to the Minister’s earlier claim that huge improvements would be seen in public health. Some amendments relate to the employment of public health professionals by local authorities. The trouble is that the Faculty of Public Health, the body that represents those people, opposes the Bill and wants it to be dropped. It has stated that the Bill will widen inequalities, increase health care costs and reduce the quality of care. It says that there are significant risks—[Interruption.] If hon. Members are making claims that their Bill will improve public health and that the amendments will improve arrangements for public health professionals, perhaps they should listen to the views of those public health professionals. The Faculty of Public Health has identified

“significant risks associated with the NHS structures, the new health system and environment that the Bill will enact.”

The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) was, perhaps courageously, trying to get the Minister to set out what powers local authorities would have under the new system. He will know, however, that health and wellbeing boards will not have the final say over GP commissioning plans. They will not be able to stop them. The only course left to them will be to appeal to the NHS Commissioning Board. I would respectfully point out to the right hon. Gentleman that if he thinks that the NHS Commissioning Board will automatically agree to complaints from local authorities, his experience of the NHS is very different from mine. We need to be clear that there will be no sign-off by health and wellbeing boards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew George]

I shall sidestep that question at present and return to it later, because I first want to listen to the Minister’s winding-up speech. As I want to ensure that he has adequate time, I shall conclude my remarks as swiftly as possible.

I could, however, initiate a brief yah-boo interlude, such as by saying that the previous Government got rid of community health councils. Many people look back at the era of CHCs as the halcyon days of independent scrutiny of local provision. In creating local healthwatch, we should as far as possible mirror, and learn from, the excellent services provided by the CHCs.

[Liz Kendall]

On 26 October 2006, when the Secretary of State was the shadow Secretary of State, he set out his policies on HealthWatch. He said:

“I envisage it as an independent body with a separate funding stream and the right to decide its own agenda of work.”

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that has been completely changed under this Bill?

[Andrew George]

Earlier, I asked a question about the rationale behind the last-minute change from having independent bodies to the situation now, under which, as a result of both a proposal we are debating this evening and an amendment tabled in the Lords, we are allowing local authorities to commission community interest companies or others to provide the healthwatch function in their areas. That ties the local healthwatch into the local authority. I believe we should devolve and localise, and empower local communities as far as possible, but this change does not achieve that. Instead, it empowers the local authority. If there is a genuine intention to ensure that we have integrated health and social care, then there is a problem here. If the local authority provides both the social care and the local scrutiny, I fear we may not have effective scrutiny of the work of the local authority in this regard.

Liberal Democrats in the Lords have done excellent work in advancing a large number of amendments to improve the Bill, and I am perplexed that the proposal before us tonight appears, in effect, to backpedal from that progress made in other areas. That is why I hope the Minister will reassure us on the rationale for this proposal, and assure us that the new body will be genuinely independent and genuinely effective. I shall therefore reserve judgment on the question of which way to vote tonight.

Health and Social Care (Re-committed) Bill

Debate between Andrew George and Liz Kendall

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

This is a crucial part of the debate that we will have over the next couple of days. Parts 3 and 4 of the Bill are at the heart of the Government’s proposals for the NHS and of the concerns that professional bodies, patient groups, members of the public and Members—at least on this side of the House—have about those proposals. These parts will introduce a new economic regulator for the NHS, modelled on the same lines as those for gas, electricity and railways. They also enshrine UK and EU competition law into primary legislation on the NHS for the first time.

We have also been discussing crucial new amendments that, despite what the Secretary of State says, have not been scrutinised by the Future Forum, about the Government’s new failure regime. That essentially addresses which local services and hospitals—such as we all have in our constituencies—will be allowed to fail.

Each of these subjects should be subject to separate and far longer debates, because they are of such importance to our constituents, our local NHS staff and our local services. However, because the House has been given so little time and the Government have tabled so many amendments, we have been forced to take these huge issues together—[Interruption.] As always, the Minister of State groans from a sedentary position, but Members have a right to question the Government on their proposals for local hospitals and services, and three or four hours is not sufficient. I hope that the other place will take that into account.

The Bill establishes Monitor as an economic regulator, modelled on the same lines as those for gas, electricity and railways. The explanatory notes make this explicit. Page 85 states that clauses in part 3 are based

“upon precedents from the utilities, rail and telecoms industries”.

Indeed, in an interview with The Times earlier this year, David Bennett, the new chairman of Monitor, confirmed that that was the Government’s plan, saying that Monitor’s role would be comparable with the regulators of the gas, electricity and telecoms markets.

Labour Members have consistently argued that such a model is entirely wrong for our NHS. People’s need for health care is not the same as their need for gas, water or telecoms. There is a fundamental difference between needs, ability to benefit, the complexity of services and the fact that they are far more interlinked. The NHS is not a normal market. It is not like a supermarket, or like gas or the railways. There are much more important issues at stake.

The Government have made some minor amendments to Monitor’s duties, but they will not ensure the integration and collaboration that many hon. Members recognise is vital to improving health, especially for patients with long-term and chronic conditions. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) said, the duties still rig Monitor in favour of competition. It is not only Monitor’s duties that do that. Chapter 2 of part 3 contains 12 clauses that explicitly introduce competition law into primary legislation on the NHS for the first time. The clauses give Monitor sweeping powers to conduct investigations into NHS services; to disqualify senior staff in hospitals and other NHS services; and to impose penalties for breaches of competition law, including the power to fine services that are found to have broken the law up to 10% of their turnover. Not only that, but third parties, including competitors, can bring damage claims against those services.

The Government claim, as the Secretary of State did earlier, that somehow those provisions will not change anything. In that case, why bother to have the clauses in the Bill? As the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) said, Labour Members have argued not that the Bill extends the scope of competition law, but that it extends the applicability of competition law to the NHS. It is not just the clauses on Monitor and competition law that do this, but others such as those that abolish the private patient cap on foundation trusts, and other Government policies, such as that of “any qualified provider”.

[Andrew George]

I hope that the hon. Lady shares my disappointment that, despite the fact that we have debated this issue for four hours and that I have tabled nine selected amendments, I have not had the opportunity to explain the purpose of those amendments—even though the Secretary of State referred to them in his opening remarks. Does she accept, for example, that amendment 1207 relates to clause 58(3) and balancing competition versus anti-competitive behaviour? The other amendments seek to give integration a greater priority for the regulator to enforce.

[Liz Kendall]

I understand why the hon. Gentleman tabled those amendments and I understand his concerns. Opposition Members have consistently argued that the Bill threatens to pit doctor against doctor and service against service when they should be working together in the best interests of patients. Our view is that a far better approach than seeking to amend the Bill would be to delete part 3, because it is a fundamentally wrong way to treat our NHS. A few small changes to Monitor’s duties would not alter what the Bill seeks to do, and that is why amendment 10 proposes deletion of part 3.

The Bill will guarantee that the NHS will be treated as a full market, and the providers of services will, for the first time, be treated as undertakings for the purpose of competition law. The Secretary of State said that the Bill would not increase the applicability of competition law, but the Minister of State confirmed it when he told the Committee:

“UK and EU competition laws will increasingly become applicable…in a future where the majority of providers are likely to be classed as undertakings for the purposes of EU competition law, that law…will apply.”––[Official Report, Health and Social Care Public Bill Committee, 15 March 2011; c. 718.]

If the Government wish to claim that that would not be the effect of the Bill, they should publish any legal advice they have taken. Again, we have two different stories. The Minister of State says that the Government have taken legal advice, but in answers to parliamentary questions we hear that the Government have not taken legal advice. Members deserve to know what the advice is about the implications of this Bill.

NHS staff, patient groups and members of the public have very real fears about the consequences of the Government’s proposals and the full market that is envisaged in the Bill. The previous Government saw that giving patients more choice and a greater say in their treatment, and bringing different providers into the system—including from the private and voluntary sectors—can bring real benefits, including improving outcomes and efficiency, especially in elective care. But we always did that using clear national standards that this Government are abolishing and with the ability to manage the consequences that choice and competition bring.