NHS Winter Pressures

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be quoting Onay Kasab, the lead national officer of Unite, who spoke to Sky News outside the Department of Health and Social Care just a few minutes after my discussions with the trade unions. The slightly odd thing was that Mr Kasab was not actually in the meeting on which he was commenting.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is pleasing to hear from across the House a focus on capacity in domiciliary care, which is a huge priority. Ultimately, that is where we want people to end up: independent in their own homes, as far as possible. I wonder if the Secretary of State could reassure me about some elements of the plan for the NHS to procure care beds. Where does he envisage staff coming from? If it is from the NHS, how will we ensure that more people do not leave domiciliary care for what are often better-paid roles in the NHS? In the same vein, on capacity, how will we ensure that people are able to move on from residential care beds into domiciliary care when there is that shortage of capacity?

[Steve Barclay]

As befits the leader of his own county council, my hon. Friend rightly recognises the importance of the integration of health and care. I have pointed to examples where that is already being done extremely effectively in an integrated way. As I recognised in my remarks, the medical director of NHS England has said that helping people to leave hospital with the right support when they are ready to do so is not just clinically the best option for those individuals, but one of the safest options for expanding capacity for everyone who needs care. It is the right thing to do clinically, but his point—one that we are extremely focused on—is about how we then ensure that wraparound service for patients who are released into residential care so that they can move into domiciliary care.