NHS: Winter Crisis

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I agree with the noble Baroness that bed occupancy is higher than we want it to be and in some hospitals it is far too high. The question, of course, is what we do about that. It necessitated the difficult decision, for which the Prime Minister apologised, to cancel non-urgent elective surgery. Happily, that has not been repeated and rolled forward into February. We think and hope that the situation with flu, in particular, has stabilised and that that will start to relieve the pressure. I absolutely understand the hard work that staff are having to put in under tremendous pressure and I know that we all appreciate that.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on finding extra money for the National Health Service but does my noble friend agree that just putting more money in is not going to solve the crisis? Until we manage to sort out the social care system and the care of elderly people in our population the crisis will continue. We need convalescent places for older people who do not need to be in hospital in order to free up beds. I would also welcome an update on the thinking on integration between health and social care, which I so much endorse.

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

My noble friend is absolutely right to highlight integration. I point to two things, one that is happening now and one for the long term. In the short term, the better care fund is a pot to which local authorities and the NHS contribute and it has more money than ever before, precisely to make sure that that interface between NHS care and social care is as good as possible and people can be discharged safely home as soon as possible, which is of course what they want. We also know that we are going to have a social care Green Paper this summer. It is a really important moment; we know how many missed opportunities there have been in the past to reform care in this area and I know that noble Lords are really keen to contribute to this. I urge them to do so and in that way we can build a consensus for change.