Respite Care for Vulnerable Adults: Teesside

Anna Turley Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wholeheartedly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) on securing this debate, which is crucial to some of the most vulnerable people who face the most difficult challenges in their lives. All too often, their voices are not heard in this place, so this debate is extremely important and I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for securing it and for enabling our discussion of this issue.

I was keen to speak in this debate because, at the very first surgery that I held after I was elected three years ago, the very first people who came to see me were the carers of a disabled adult with severe needs. I was shocked to hear that they had not come to discuss their concerns about themselves, or even about the quality of care—although of course they were concerned about the quality of care for their adopted daughter—but were mostly concerned about the wellbeing of the staff and carers who looked after their daughter, and about the lack of payment for overnight working, the low pay and the insecure nature of the work. As we look ahead to the Green Paper on social care, I wish to take the opportunity to underline on the Floor of the House how fundamental those who work in the sector are to the care that these vulnerable families need. If we do not look after them, we cannot expect the families to get the kind of care that they deserve.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a point about young carers, the voices of whom all too often just are not heard. There is a fantastic charity in Redcar called the Junction Foundation. It is my charity of the year and does an amazing job of supporting young people who are trying to manage the care of members of their families and who are, in a sense, losing some of their childhood in doing so. I do not know what would happen if charities such as the Junction Foundation were not there, because these are people who are falling through the cracks in state provision. I pay tribute to all the charities and state organisations out there that support young people.

I wish to focus briefly on what respite care means to some of the people in my constituency. Facilities such as Bankfields Court in Eston in my constituency are hugely beneficial to the quality of life for the people with learning disabilities and other complex needs who directly access their support. They are also a valuable lifeline to family members who work 24/7 caring for their loved ones. It is difficult for any of us to imagine what it would be like to have to care for a family member 24/7 who has very high levels of need and to have to work through incredibly complex care packages and care plans, often for years—even decades—to support the family member. They do that out of love. We pay tribute to them and owe it to them to make sure that state provision supports them.

The feedback from the “Transforming care” consultation was very worrying. There is overwhelming support for the continuation of bed-based respite care. In fact, consultees in my own borough of Redcar and Cleveland back that option by 96%, so it is overwhelmingly clear that people want to make sure that bed-based respite care continues to be available.

One constituent who contacted me about the proposals is extremely concerned about the support available for her 50-year-old son who has been attending Bankfields Court for the past 30 years. He requires nursing care and she is concerned about how he will cope if the service provided to support him is cut. The reliability and consistency of care provided by centres such as these is one of the most important reasons that they are preferred so much by disabled people and their families. They are particularly important for individuals for whom routine and structure are a necessity. The biggest issue around this is that the insecurity and disruption have a huge knock-on effect on people’s lives.

The continued availability of bed-based services at Bankfields and Aysgarth is preferable, of course, to none at all, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North said, but the reality is that these services are still going to be cut back. A cap on spending on respite care by the local CCG will inevitably restrict the services on offer. There will either be fewer nights of care or fewer people. That is a choice that we just do not want to be in a position to have to make. However, if someone has a presenting need for care, the CCG will still have to provide it, regardless of the funding restraints. Where will that care be commissioned? Does that then mean that more cuts will be made elsewhere to compensate?

At the heart of this issue is the funding cuts that local NHS services are being forced to make by central Government. Respite care services across the country are seen, I am afraid, as low-hanging fruit by many local NHS trusts and CCGs, which are having to save money. This is a short-term approach, which we know will only cost more in the long run and will have a devastating impact on many of the most vulnerable people in our society.

I was surprised to read about one case in Hertfordshire, where cuts of £600,000 to respite services for children with complex needs have been proposed. The High Court has now ruled against this twice after legal challenges. I understand that, on Teesside, the scrutiny committees for adult services are discussing whether to formally raise the issue with the Secretary of State, and I sincerely hope that they do. That is a sign of how strongly they feel. Respite care is an important part of our social care system, which is already extremely reliant on hundreds of thousands of unpaid family carers across the UK who give up their lives to provide care. Cutting these services will place even more pressure on those trying to do right by their loved ones.