Summer Adjournment

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow my colleague from the Health Committee who spoke on a theme we hear quite a bit about in our meetings—less so the astrology, but we hear quite a bit about the other aspects.

I want to talk about carers, who are a key part of our society. The challenges of caring should be a vital part of the debate on social care. Now that we talk so much more about the integration of health and social care, we must remember that unpaid family carers provide most of that care. It is not paid for—it is given. The Care Act 2014 gave local authorities responsibility for assessing a carer’s own needs for support, and for deciding whether those needs are “eligible” for support. I believe that that legislation fails carers in two ways. We know that £3.7 billion has been cut from adult social care budgets since 2009-10. Giving carers new rights to assessment and support is a hollow improvement because the support available to them is dwindling because of higher eligibility levels and increased charges.

Macmillan Cancer Support reports that only one in three carers of people with cancer had heard of a carer’s assessment, and only one in 20 carers have actually had one. A survey in 2013 found that more than 70% of carers come into contact with health professionals, including GPs, doctors and nursing staff, during their caring journey. We have given the duty to assess carers to a body that a lot of carers do not see. It has always been clear to me that health professionals should have a key role in identification, but currently they identify only one in 10 carers, and GPs identify fewer than that.

The need for NHS bodies to identify carers and ensure that they are referred to sources of advice and support was raised at all stages of the debate on the Care Bill in the Commons, but was not accepted by the care Minister. Labour tabled new clauses to ensure that NHS bodies were required to identify carers and ensure that carers received advice and support, but they were voted down. In my constituency I see how that leaves carers with inadequate support. Last week I raised the example of a 62-year-old man from Eccles, who is caring for his wife who has Alzheimer’s. When Mr Bielawski sought an urgent GP appointment for his wife, 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. That is clearly not acceptable, but it is what happens when there is no duty on GPs or their staff to identify carers. If they did that, carers and the people for whom they are caring could be given the support and the priority that they deserve. In my view, a carer for somebody with Alzheimer’s disease should receive more priority than Mr Bielawski was given.

I believe it is time for the national Government to make a covenant with carers to show how society values their caring, and how we intend to support them to continue to care in future. A covenant could address flaws in the Care Act 2014, widen the definition of carer and address additional burdens that have been put on carers by this Government’s welfare reforms.

I suggest that, initially, under the covenant, NHS bodies should have a duty to identify carers, which I have just discussed; GPs and hospital staff should signpost carers to that help and support; NHS bodies should ensure that carers receive relevant medical services, because many carers need health checks that they never get; the definition of carer should be widened to include young carers and parent carers; and schools and colleges should recognise the needs and rights of young carers, and have procedures in place to identify them. More generally, the Government should have a role in ensuring that children and young people are protected from inappropriate caring.

We should not—absolutely not—charge carers if they need an extra room for their caring responsibilities. The bedroom tax currently affects 60,000 carers, and I am glad that Labour has pledged to abolish it. I hope that we have an early vote on that. Given the reported policy U-turns in other parties, I hope they will join Labour Members in that pledge to abolish the bedroom tax. Given that current welfare reforms have had an impact on carers, the Government should ensure that future legislation is more carer-proofed, so that changes do not negatively affect carers’ ability to care.

My last point on the care part of my speech is on Labour’s whole person care proposals, which would bring together three fragmented services—NHS, mental health and social care—into a single service co-ordinating all a person’s needs. I trust that supporting carers will be central to Labour’s proposals, because, as I have said, carers provide so much of the care needed.

The bedroom tax has hit my constituency hard. Around 1,400 households are still affected. A small number have been able to move and downsize, but for the rest of those affected, the true impact of the bedroom tax is becoming clearer. Some households affected by the bedroom tax were helped by the local authority’s discretionary housing payment scheme, which was well managed and targeted appropriately by Salford city council. Despite that help, only 49% of those households affected have been able to pay the tax, and 51% of have slipped into arrears, which have risen by £90,000 in recent months. As I said, Labour has pledged to abolish the bedroom tax. That will be a relief to my constituents, but meanwhile, it is worth saying that the policy is taking my constituents into debt and into misery.

Talking of Department for Work and Pensions chaos, I recently took up the case of a constituent, Mr Koppens, who had undergone major surgery for tongue and neck cancer—a very difficult cancer. My constituent told me that, in an operation lasting more than 13 hours, he suffered heart attacks, and that he continues to have unstable angina. Given his medical history, he is not allowed to drive. Despite that, a DWP decision maker put Mr Koppens into the work-related activity group, so that he was required by the local jobcentre to attend an interview. He was referred to the Work programme.

Mr Koppens was astonished at that outcome. He felt that the jobcentre was putting pressure on him, and making him feel like a cheat and that his cardiologist and doctors were liars. In the end, he attended an interview with the Work programme provider, but during the interview, he started to suffer chest pain. He asked for a first-aider but there was no first-aider, so he had to ask for an ambulance to be called. I was amazed to discover that, despite all that, as Mr Koppens was leaving to go to the hospital, the centre’s manager remonstrated that Mr Koppens’s wife, who had driven him to the interview, had failed to sign in properly when they arrived.

Furthermore, I have had to raise with Ministers eight cases of constituents who have claimed personal independence payment from May 2013, June 2013, August 2013 and September 2013. They have encountered lost forms, waits of six months or more for an Atos assessment, and a lack of updates or information when they contact the DWP. The process appears to be in complete chaos. I hope the newly appointed Ministers will be able to make some impact on the chaos at the DWP because my constituents are suffering from it. To be frank, I am not holding my breath.

Another local issue is air pollution. Last Thursday, I asked the following question to the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

“The M60, the M62 and the M602 run through my constituency…We have extremely high levels of air pollution from road traffic. Indeed, the Highways Agency has had to shelve its plans to widen the M60 near my constituency because that would have brought too much road traffic”

on to the motorway

“and made our unacceptable air pollution worse. Now that the European Court of Justice has ruled that the Government are failing to meet their air pollution targets…what plans”

do

“Ministers have to tackle air pollution in areas such as mine, to prevent my constituents from suffering respiratory disease and early death?”—[Official Report, 17 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 1001.]

Not surprisingly, the Secretary of State—she had been in her new role for only 48 hours—found that she could not answer that question, so I hope the Deputy Leader of the House has an answer today because, in summertime, the pollution tends to make my constituents very ill.

The hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) spoke of the need for a national cemetery, but in the past 24 hours, I have been dealing with the problem of dozens of gravestones dumped on land near the Manchester ship canal. I thank Chief Superintendent Mary Doyle of Greater Manchester police, and David Seager of Salford city council, for dealing with that sensitive matter and for trying to find a solution that respects the families who own the gravestones, which should never have been dumped. I wish you, Mr Deputy Speaker, a good recess, and I thank all who support our work, particularly the Hansard writers and Noeleen and her team in the Tea Room.