Social Care

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley for her introduction to the debate and the noble Baroness for her maiden speech, which leads me to the point I wish to raise. I want to speak to the Minister about the huge looming health costs to be faced by carers. I remember a child carer, a school friend of mine, who never had lunch because she had to go home to an incontinent mother. She had to go home to wash her, clean the sheets and come back to school. Schoolchildren are suffering. There is a picture that all of us, as we get older, become pleasant, reasonable old people. We do not. Some of us—I count myself among them—become irascible, demanding and difficult.

I wish to draw attention to the problem of carers so that the Minister can take an argument about not building up another problem for the future if we do not look after the health of carers. This debate could have taken place tomorrow in the most reverend Primate the Archbishop’s debate on the role of people in the community. Many carers are informal carers. They are members of the family, neighbours or people who fit it in. These people are being put under intolerable pressure.

I have sat with a carer when the patient was asked if they would like to go to home. They said yes. The patient knew that they could not cope on their own. The carer was in tears when she was asked by the hospital, “Will you be able to look after her?”. She had to say no. Two years later, that carer had a stroke herself, in her early 60s. The pressure of being a carer is horrendous, whether they are children or older people.

The Minister and the Government are looking at what they propose to do about benefits for younger pensioners—in your Lordships’ House, “younger” is a flexible term—and what benefits they get, including increases to their pension. I sadly do not have living parents or parents-in-law, so I make no plea for myself. My worry is that, among the so-called “younger pensioners”, there is a group of people who are holding our society together. They are the people who are carers, who support voluntary groups in our communities and who are members of voluntary associations, churches or informal groups of people. I think that the Government should look at who the real carers are. I agree with the noble Baroness that we often undervalue the work and professionalism needed by those who are employed as carers, but we also undervalue the commitment of those who are working hard.

All of us in this Chamber have a responsibility to speak up for those in greatest need. I know that many Members of your Lordships’ House have faced the problem of being the first pit-stop for caring in their own families and I know that many Members are committed to helping friends and former colleagues here. I hope the Minister will believe me that, if we do not do something, we will have bed-blocking by former carers who have been taken ill because we have put too much pressure on them. These are the people who make us the civilised society that we are and we ought to ensure that they do not become bed-blockers because we are trading on their good will and generosity too much by not tackling this problem.

I will read what the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said about insurance. It is interesting that, as I have got older, every birthday I get a letter from insurance companies asking me if I want to take out a policy to pay for my funeral. I have never yet had a letter from anybody offering to sell me a policy for when I become old, difficult, irascible and immobile. Perhaps the insurance companies are missing something there. I have not known them miss anything before—perhaps, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, it would not be financially viable for them.