Health and Care Bill (Nineteeth sitting)

Debate between Karin Smyth and Chris Skidmore

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Karin Smyth]

I am afraid that these bodies have not proven themselves good at doing that, and it is not good to have them police themselves, so we need to progress the debate. On the national/local question, I am generally more Morrison than Bevan, so I will continue to plough that furrow, but this is also about being seen to do things properly for local people. My fundamental point remains that as we ask people to spend more money—we are talking about a huge proportion of our GDP, and it will be increasingly so under any Government—we need to be able to demonstrate to them what is done with it, and how and why it is done, and we need to involve the public.

That is my view of the future of the health service, and that is why I will continue to pursue this argument. When it comes to cost, it is a moot point whether this is done quietly in the corridors of NHS England; whether it is done by the Secretary of State; whether names mysteriously appear in the local economy; or whether there is due process. I am not saying that the old system was perfect. It is quite hard to recruit people to these bodies, but they are powerful people, spending billions of pounds of local money in the local economy. They need to be more representative and accountable, and we need to know who they are. As I said, I will not pursue the matter now, but I would like to see it debated further over the passage of the Bill, and we will come back to it another time. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 9

Duty to promote research

“For Section 1E of the National Health Service Act 2006 substitute—

‘Duty to promote research

The Secretary of State must—

(a) support the conduct of research on matters relevant to the health and care system,

(b) provide funding for research on matters relevant to the health and care system, via ring-fenced funding for the National Institute for Health Research, and

(c) promote the use in the health and care system of evidence obtained from research.’”—(Chris Skidmore.)

This new clause would require the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to have a duty to support, fund and promote the use of research in the health and care system in England, via ring-fenced funding for the National Institute for Health Research.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The clause would introduce for the first time a duty to promote research, particularly on the Secretary of State. The Committee may remember that in discussion on clause 19, I spoke extensively on integrated care boards’ duties to promote research. This reflects the importance that research plays in our healthcare system. We recognise the value of being able to carry out real-term clinical trials in the single health ecosystem that is the NHS. That not only enormously benefits patients, in terms of health outcomes, but underpins a whole life sciences industry, in which, as we have seen from the pandemic and our vaccine response, the UK is truly world leading.

It is not simply because of profit that I wish to speak to the new clause. It is also clear, as I discussed on clause 19, that research can underpin and strengthen the healthcare ecosystem. It can help with retaining staff, who become inspired by the research that they do in the course of their careers. It also improves health outcomes for patients, and the investment in research is ploughed back into healthcare services. Everyone benefits from spending money on research and development. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire made the point to me that research also plays an important part when it comes to the accountability and transparency of the NHS by underpinning clinical auditing processes, by which we can then demonstrate healthcare inequalities and map out where NHS services need to improve. That can drive better integration of services by seeking to identify where the inequalities are and closing them.

Promoting research is not simply about R&D and big pharma; it is about changing how we look at our health service. We need to move from a healthcare service that is still primarily reactive to one that can recognise patient population issues around chronic disease, and identify which interventions can be made earlier. That is something that we are beginning to understand far better through the application of genomics and precision medicine. The UK became the first country in the world to code 100,000 genomes in the 100,000 Genomes project, and there is the Biobank project. That has all come about thanks to initial investment in research and development, and it has opened up a whole new area of healthcare services that the NHS will benefit from in decades to come.

It is very important to invest in R&D. Since our morning sitting, the Chancellor has announced an additional £44 billion of investment in the NHS over three years to 2024-25, taking total spend in the NHS up to £177 billion. I welcome that huge investment in healthcare services. It is not yet clear exactly what investment is to go into healthcare R&D, although the Budget leaks in The Sunday Times and beyond suggest that roughly £5 billion of that will be spent on health R&D over five years. I welcome that funding. There was also mention of additional money being spent on genomics.

If it is the case that healthcare research is to receive £5 billion over three years, it is not just about the money; it is about the use that money is put to, and making sure that it goes as far as possible and has the best possible outcomes. We can only do that by ensuring that we have the structures and frameworks in place to make sure that the money is well spent. New clause 9 places a duty on the Secretary of State to

“(a) support the conduct of research on matters relevant to the health and care system,

(b) provide funding for research on matters relevant to the health and care system, via ring-fenced funding for the National Institute for Health Research, and

(c) promote the use in the health and care system of evidence obtained from research.”

The positive feedback mechanism is important. We do not want to commission research that will gather dust on the shelves. We want to make sure, through real-time evidence and clinical trials, that the R&D money goes as far as possible, for the benefit of patients.

I said that paragraph (b) would ringfence funding for the National Institute for Health Research—a long-term ask of research organisations and companies involved in the active process of healthcare R&D. If I am honest with you, the process has often been a hand-to-mouth exercise. NIHR has received about £1 billion a year to spend on R&D. The most important thing in R&D is to provide not simply the funding, but the long-term certainty over that funding. When I was Science Minister, one reason why I was so committed to ensuring that the UK was associated with Horizon Europe was that it is a seven-year multiannual financial framework—those researchers have security for seven years. The level of participation is a different question, but the scientist or healthcare researcher commits to research projects that last several years at a time. What they cannot have is uncertainty, every year, that the research might suddenly be pulled. That leads to the disintegration of research partnerships and a lack of commitment at the start to even beginning to understand what might be achievable.

Ringfencing funding for the NIHR will provide the certainty as well as the money, so it will make the money go further. Individuals will be able to commit to projects, knowing that they have funding not for one year, but several years.

Health and Care Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Karin Smyth and Chris Skidmore

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Karin Smyth]

The right hon. Gentleman is making some excellent points. He and I share a health economy, two universities and a thriving region, but we still have problems. People in my constituency cannot get the sorts of jobs and apprenticeships that they need. How would his amendment deal with the geographical discrepancies across the country through a single two-year report, and how would we account for the different training demands in different parts of the country?

[Chris Skidmore]

I think there is a subsection here about how clause 33 relates to clause 19 and the duties on ICBs as the placemaking organisations that can provide the training opportunities for the future. I also think there are great opportunities in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for potential further devolution of the skills budget through a mayoral system. That skills budget will already be devolved in some of the metro Mayor areas, so I hope that it will also be devolved across wider areas that do not necessarily have a city population. The Government are clearly looking to fill that gap. Those are also the skill needs of the healthcare population, which is why, when it comes to the duties for the ICBs, I am keen that they take on board the wider non-healthcare resident population, whether in universities, colleges or elsewhere, to bring in expertise on creating training pathways for the future.

Without going off-piste, I think there are future opportunities for more flexible qualifications. We have the lifelong learning allowance. We are looking at how to allow individuals to retrain for the future, creating apprenticeship opportunities, in-work opportunities and course-based opportunities. This is not just about providing nurses and doctors; it is also about allowing nurses to move up the scales and retrain when they are in the NHS, which would help to lower the attrition rate.

Retention is one of the greatest challenges we have—it is not only about training—and I am sure that the intention of clause 33 is also to get to grips with retaining the 20% of the workforce who leave over a five-year cycle. It would do so much better if it took into account statistics consistent with the Office for Budget Responsibility’s long-term fiscal projections and if we were able to look at the needs of the population. That is what subsection 2(b) of my amendment suggests—looking at workforce numbers

“based on the projected health and care needs of the population”

as well as the demographic numbers of the workforce.

The amendment suggests a number of organisations that should be able to contribute to the report, including health and care employers. I return to the point that the care sector is not reflected in clause 33, and it really should be. Trade unions also play a vital role in identifying needs; that may be strange coming from a Conservative MP and I may disagree politically with unions, but they have the data and the opportunity to provide feedback from their members, which is really important. I have mentioned the royal colleges in discussions on previous amendments. Universities are critical for identifying ways of integrating healthcare and education practices. I also suggest

“any other persons deemed necessary for the preparation of the report, taking full account of workforce intelligence…and plans provided by local organisations and partners of integrated care boards.”

The amendment would therefore allow for place-based opportunities, as the hon. Member for Bristol South has said, in delivering on the clause’s workforce planning.

I do not intend to push the amendment to a vote. It is a probing amendment, which I hope the Minister will take seriously, especially given the length of time the issue was discussed in the oral evidence sessions.

I am sure all Members have received briefing packs from various organisations. Clause 33 comes up as one of the priorities. The organisations’ intentions are not vexatious; they are not raising the issue to make a campaign point against the Government. The tone of the Bill is one of collaboration and partnership. As was mentioned in the oral evidence sessions and the early sittings of the Committee, the Bill is unique. It is not a top-down reorganisation—it is filling in the jigsaw puzzle that has been constructed from below upwards, providing the legislative cherry on the top of a cake that has already been baked by local healthcare communities who know what they need. What they need is certainty on workforce planning. The Bill provides the legislative certainty of consistency at national level that will trickle down to local level.

I urge the Minister to listen to the requests for more frequent reporting on workforce planning, better use of data in producing the report and a widening of opportunities to be partners in that report. The Minister and Department have done a fantastic job in allowing the partnership model to evolve. We have moved away from institutional top-down accountability, where there was a competitive spirit between institutions. We have broken that down; the ICPs and ICBs now provide an opportunity for greater partnership working, for the benefit of patients and the outcomes that need to be delivered. This is the missing piece in the legislation.

We need to move workforce needs to a partnership model and away from the top-down approach that clause 33 very much suggests. The Secretary of State holds all the cards on the planning of the report and does not even necessarily have to work with NHS England or Health Education England. In the spirit of the Bill, I urge the Minister to open up the clause and consider the proposal in amendment 94 on Report or in the other place. It is an important change that would make the Bill even better. I urge him to give it due consideration.

Health and Care Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Karin Smyth and Chris Skidmore

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

Q I appreciate that people working together and perhaps substantiating some of those informal arrangements might, in theory, do some of what you hope. However, the employers remain the institutions that make up the integrated care boards—that is the effect of the Bill. You have started to talk about the process. Could you perhaps talk a bit more about how that is enforced, what that means in practical terms for employers and how employers might behave? I am partly thinking of one of the trusts in my area, which, a number of years ago, set up a wholly owned subsidiary company, with the benefit for them of different terms and conditions for staff as a way of saving money. That was obviously detrimental to the healthcare system generally because you are competing for the same sorts of staff. We made the trust stop doing that because we wanted the staff to be treated the same. My point is: the employers, the terms and conditions, the benefits and the way that they will attract staff remain the same. The Bill does not make the ICB the employer or the way to deliver those terms and conditions or ways of recruitment. I think it is a theory. Can you convince us otherwise and show how in practical terms the Bill solves some of those problems?

Danny Mortimer: It is absolutely the case that the individual organisations in the NHS, social care, charitable organisations and local authorities that make up the partnership as well as the board will remain separate legal entities. We do not see that it is desirable for the NHS to move from having 250 separate employers to having 42 employers. What we have in the NHS is a set of national terms and conditions. My organisation has a particular responsibility on behalf of the Secretary of State to negotiate those with our trade union colleagues. We see that they work well for the NHS and I detect no movement among my membership to move large scale away from those national terms and conditions, which cover the vast majority of staff who work in the statutory NHS.

What we see with ICSs is that organisations are increasingly coming together to address shared challenges. We observe that those challenges are not about pay and conditions but about supply. They are about working together to think about how to promote a specific area for people to come and work in, whether that is Nottinghamshire or West Yorkshire and Harrogate, where there has been some fantastic work in promoting careers in the sector as a whole. We see people coming together to work with directly elected Mayors around the skills agenda. There has been some really fantastic work, for example, in the west midlands, with health and social care organisations coming together with local authorities. We see similar work and engagement with the Mayor of London on the skills agenda that he is taking forward. Again, that is being done by organisations working together. That helps partners—local authorities are engaging with health and social care as a team rather than dozens of separate organisations. It also helps us promote careers that span the whole range of settings that we operate in and speaks to the particular priorities of our colleagues in social care. We see some really fantastic examples of that in various parts of the country.

Finally, we see a real opportunity to take forward the work that I have just talked to Dr Davies about. Systems, as they look at their services and their knowledge of the things that they are providing in their communities to your constituents, can inform the national plans that Navina described in her answer to Dr Davies. We can have a much greater connection between local priorities and some of the decisions that are made nationally about how we invest longer term in education. Of course, the NHS workforce is about 50% degree educated or degree equivalent. So there are significant investments that the Department of Health and Social Care, the Office for Students and the education sector make in our workforce. Being able to root that in what it is that local services need and how they are developed seems to us like a fantastic opportunity, and would help us to avoid the problems that we have got into in the last couple of decades with pressure points in various parts of our workforce.

Dr Navina Evans: I will build on what Danny has just described. You have given some really good examples of how local employers are coming together in systems to address workforce issues. I would add a bit more about how we do it and how we can do it even better going forward. Health Education England has a role in developing careers and attracting young people—all people—into the health and care workforce. We play a really big part in that. First, we have found that doing that locally, at a very local level with the communities and organisations that really understand their local populations, has been a really good thing to do. Some of the examples that Danny gave have built on that and we will move forward on that.

Secondly, we have structures in which people boards, at integrated care system level and definitely at regional level, now bring collections of the different organisations together. We have systems that are starting to think about themselves as anchor systems, which means that they can influence employment, the economy and the success of local communities.

Finally, the population health issue has been something that we have really woken up to, and we are cognisant of the fact that we have to focus on and rebalance the health and wellbeing of the population. Through the pandemic, we have learned a lot more about where we need to target our efforts to reduce inequalities. That can only be done really well through collaboration at a local level. Organisations such as mine need to work closely with our partners in NHSE, with the Department and with other national organisations to make sure that we support those local efforts to be sensitive to the needs of their particular population. It is bringing the national priorities, principles and policy into life at a very local level by making sure that we have the systems and structures in place to deliver what is needed locally. We had already started working on that—the work is well under way—and the Bill will enhance our ability to get on with doing that.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

Q I want to return to the issue of workforce planning, which obviously is integral to both of your organisations. You have discussed the strategic framework you have been working on, and hopefully that will evolve into a workforce strategy, which is addressed in clause 33 of the Bill. I have tabled an amendment to clause 33 which is to make the workforce report annual rather than once every five years. I think that the pandemic has demonstrated the futile nature of trying to produce a report once every five years, when we know that the nature of the workforce could change radically during that period. Would your organisations agree that it would be better for that report to be produced on an annual basis? Clause 33 states that NHS England and Health Education England

“must assist in the preparation…in this section,”

but only

“if requested to do so by the Secretary of State.”

You have talked about locally led decision making and planning. Do you both agree that we need better co-creation? My amendment covers the fact that a plan should be developed and agreed by stakeholders in particular. Would your organisations welcome this amendment, which would result in an annual workforce strategy and require it to be developed by all other healthcare organisations working in this sphere?

Dr Navina Evans: From HEE’s perspective, we will deliver on the duties that Parliament decides that we ought to deliver. We feel that we have the capacity and the capability. We can organise ourselves to deliver whatever is required of us by the Bill. The work that we do is lithe—it is iterative. We do iterative planning, in a meaningful way, at the national and system level, so we will be able to respond and fit in with whatever is required of us by the Bill and Parliament.

Danny Mortimer: Thank you for the question. Absolutely, there is an opportunity for the Bill to define a wider range of stakeholders. The systems at the centre of the Bill—integrated care boards and integrated care partnerships—are central to that, and their perspectives, as we have just talked about with Ms Smyth, in terms of the needs of their population and the services they need to put in place to respond to them, need to be at the centre of the process that Navina and others would lead on behalf of the Secretary of State. That is the first thing. Secondly, there is an opportunity through those systems to broaden our conversation to include social care as well as health. That is really important to us on this day of all days, in terms of the announcements later.

In terms of the regular appraisal, we absolutely believe that five years is absolutely insufficient for the task. We also believe that it cannot just be about process. It has to be about setting out clear requirements and clear specificity about those requirements over different time periods. There is something about the short-term need, and there is also something about five, 10 and 20 years. It needs to be regular. We have proposed two years because it is a huge amount of work and that feels to us to be a minimum in terms of how regular the perspective could be, but it may well lend itself to an annual update, as you have described.

We also see that organisations such as Health Education England and Skills for Care, which operates in the social care sector, absolutely have the capacity and capability to lead this work. Their way of working, similar to the Department’s way of working throughout the preparation of this Bill, is about engaging, convening and trying to bring stakeholders together to get a broad range of perspectives. That is our experience of the long-term process that Navina and her colleagues are leading on behalf of the Department at the moment. The Bill confirming that would confirm ways of working that we are starting to see develop with stakeholders in a really healthy and constructive way.

Health and Care Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Karin Smyth and Chris Skidmore

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

Q I wanted to turn to workforce planning and your views on clause 33. The NHS Confederation, in its written evidence, has suggested that the five-year period for a strategic review on workforce planning is too long. That mirrors my amendment, which has a crack at this. I have suggested an annual review. It was suggested this morning that two years might be the right time length. I see that the NHS Confederation has suggested three years. I want to get your organisations’ views on what a strategic review should look like, but also on the format and how a strategic review should be undertaken so that it actually works as an act of co-creation, rather than being directed centrally by the Secretary of State on to Health Education England.

Matthew Taylor: My area of expertise before coming to the NHS Confederation was work and the future of work, on which I advised the Government, and one of the things I know from that work is how quickly the world of work is changing. It is impacted by a whole variety of things—not least, of course, substantial technological change. In a world where work is evolving very quickly and population needs are evolving, five years is simply far too long. If it were one year, we would be happy. We have fastened on to two years. That would be the minimum that we would want as a gap between assessments of workforce need.

It is also—to emphasise the point that I think you are making—important that this review gathers evidence from a whole variety of bodies, because an enormous amount of extremely good work is taking place around work. Predictions of workforce need are imprecise, so hearing from a variety of voices is important. This should be an independent process, in which independent expertise is brought to bear; there should be wide consultation with those who think about these issues; and a two-year plan would, I think, be an improvement on what is in the Bill.

Saffron Cordery: We also support this amendment and the work that has been done by the confederation and others on this. There is one other element that I would add to this that supports this perspective. It has been really hard, across NHS workforce planning, to light upon one version of the truth, in terms of workforce numbers. Anything that starts to move towards a collective perspective on workforce needs and workforce planning will be absolutely critical.

Getting an agreed perspective on how we create that figure will be fundamental. In my time working across the health service, there have been many different perspectives on workforce—on the gaps, the numbers who are in roles, and what those roles need to be. It is important to have lots of views, but I think this is also important. Although, as Matthew says, it is not a precise science, we need to light upon a version that is independently agreed, but that we all sign up to as the numbers we are working to.

[Karin Smyth]

Q If I may, I will return to the permissiveness and place conversation. I agree with the Bill’s direction of travel around place. I do not like the word “permissiveness”, because we have essentially a local cartel of healthcare providers deciding on resources and their allocation, and that locks out local communities. I am a bit suspicious of the NHS being given permission to do as it sees fit. That is why I put forward the example about ear wax removal—because that matters to local people, as we all know; that is what some of these things come down to.

The Bill falls apart because of the governance arrangements and the accountability, which does not follow the logic of place-based commissioning. My solution for the Government, should they wish to take it, is something around a good governance commission, based on the previous appointments commission-type process. It would bring in skilled people, with clear role descriptions, clear skills and a degree of independence. It would have the trust of local people, and would bring these very powerful chief executives together with local leaders to explain why, in Bristol, you cannot have ear wax removal, or why you are closing certain provision and opening it in Derbyshire or wherever. Have you had an opportunity to look at my proposal for a good governance commission and locally accountable chairs—perhaps elected, or appointed? What do you think of that as a solution that would bring power and accountability closer to local people?

Saffron Cordery: The issue of accountability is absolutely fundamental. One of the things we have not talked about much in this sitting, and which is not talked about that much, is the presence of two bodies in the system. We have the ICB, but also this partnership body that brings together a number of wider partners—particularly local government—with democratic accountability, which I think is really important.

I am wary of adding too much into the structures in the Bill. I understand your perspective on permissiveness, and we need to make sure that there are checks and balances across the whole system, but I would be wary of adding in another structure alongside everything we have. One of the features of this legislation, as I have said throughout the process—we have met the Department of Health and Social Care and talked to their Bill team, who have been very open and helpful—is that it does not really streamline in the way that it thinks it might. It adds to existing structures and processes, rather than starting from a clean sheet of paper and building something that might be deemed to be a good enough model; we will never get to the perfect model.

Right now, what we do not need is a root-and-branch dismantling of NHS structures and something wholly new put in their place, but I think there has been a missed opportunity to look at where we could streamline more. On that basis, I think it is important not to add more in, and it is fundamentally important that we look at the different roles and structures that already exist. From a trust provider perspective, working both at place and within provider collaboratives, and looking at the governance of unitary boards with non-executives and in some places also with governors and members, we see that there is that element of engagement with the community that you perhaps do not see in other places. I do not think it speaks entirely to your cartel point, but it is a step along the way that is well established and well used in many places.

This is a thorny and tricky issue. Using existing structures of accountability will be really important, as well as using the new ones, but I would not want to see anything new added in there.

Matthew Taylor: I largely agree with that, but another point is that if there is a broad policy thrust in this legislation, it is away from a medical model of health towards one that focuses more on social determinants. In the best partnerships—we talk often about West Yorkshire and Harrogate, for example—there is an incredibly strong relationship between health service leaders and local authority leaders. That will be a critical factor in the success of the system. When I look at the best practice emerging in the integrated care systems on issues such as prevention and population health, I see leaders starting to talk about issues such as housing, employment and public space, recognising their importance to health. In one way, that is a progressive move, and one that will probably lead to a louder voice for a variety of local interests, if we understand health much more in these socially determined terms, rather than simply through the medical model.

We had a big announcement today about social care reform, and there is a set of issues that are not in this Bill—issues around health and social care integration, how it will work and how accountability will work. It remains to be seen how the Government address that question.