Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to focus on the importance of better care fund plans, including the interests of carers. The planning guidance that was issued in December made it clear that the plans should include the well-being of carers. Updated guidance will be issued very soon, and will reinforce the central importance of carers’ being part of the plans. We do not yet have a final picture, but we are keen to ensure that all plans include the interests of carers.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Last week I raised with the Prime Minister the case of a 62-year-old man who is caring for his wife, who has Alzheimer’s. When he sought an urgent GP appointment for her, he was told that it would take five weeks for her to see her GP and two weeks to see any GP, or he could take her to Salford Royal hospital’s A and E department. Does the care Minister think that that is acceptable, and will he now back the creation of a duty for NHS bodies to identify carers, so that they and the people for whom they are caring are given the support and the priority that they deserve?

[Norman Lamb]

No. I do not think that that level of wait is acceptable, which is exactly why we are promoting the better care fund. We want to bring together disparate parts of the system so that care is shaped around the needs of patients, and that has been widely supported throughout the system. I should also mention that the hon. Lady’s party colleague Baroness Pitkeathley was incredibly positive about the Care Act, saying that it was the biggest advance in her 30 years of working in the interests of carers. I wish that at some point the hon. Lady would just acknowledge all the good things that the Government have done in carers’ interests.

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[Jane Ellison]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her great campaigning on this issue, and on the really good results that she has had. As she says, we have recently consulted on changing the regulations under the Medicines Act 1968 to allow schools to hold inhalers in the way that she has described. There was overwhelming support for such a change, and we will lay the necessary statutory instrument this week to enable the change to come into force on 1 October.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

T6. On nurse-patient staffing ratios, it has been reported in the Health Service Journal that out of 139 trusts surveyed, 119 failed to fill their registered day nurse hours, 112 failed to fill their registered night nurse hours and 105 failed to fill their registered nurse hours across day and night. Is it not time for Ministers and NICE to state straightforwardly that a ratio of one nurse to eight patients or better is the only way for patient safety?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

NICE has taken the sensible decision to issue its guidance. It does so independently, but we are not making it mandatory on the advice of the chief nursing officer and many other chief nurses across the country for the simple reason that if we have a mandatory minimum, that can become the maximum that trusts invest in and many wards need more than 1:8. That is why NICE’s guidance was so important today.