Integrated Care Boards

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes the point about general practice. One thing that we are looking at, which will probably come up in the debate later in the week on the future of primary care, is the whole issue of what GPs do. There are many things they do that they do not have to do—these could be done by local partners, practice nurses, physiotherapists or social prescribing, and so on. In addition, Ministers and the NHS have been in conversation with GPs’ representatives, looking at these particular issues.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, could my noble friend update the House on the scheme for bringing in overseas workers to fill the gaps in social care that have opened up so seriously over the last year or two? There have been suggestions that the salary level—which currently does not allow sufficient numbers of care workers to come into the UK, when they are desperately needed—might be lowered. Is there any update for the House on that?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. The last I was aware of—and I shall look at it and write to my noble friend—was that, under the visa scheme, we were looking to bring in people from overseas to fill those vacancies. We have historically done that; as I said, after the war we looked to people from the Commonwealth, who came and saved our public services. Clearly, when we are unable to recruit enough people locally, we have to look at those issues and at whether it is something to do with the education system, and whether we can encourage them to come forward. But where there are gaps we will have to look more widely to our partners around the world.