Queen’s Speech

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to be able to make a short contribution to this last day of the Queen’s Speech debate. I refer to my declarations in the register of interests. I also commend my noble friend Lady Sherlock on her excellent opening speech, which clearly laid out the context for this debate on behalf of these Benches.

The first issue I raise is education, and specifically the crucial policy area for the future well-being of our economy: apprenticeships. On this, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, rightly said, the Queen’s Speech is silent. The University of Salford, where I am chair of the board of governors, is rapidly growing its degree apprenticeship provision. Combining degree-level study with on-the-job training, degree apprenticeships are a shining example of the high-quality technical and vocational education that the Secretary of State quite rightly champions as vital to the future economic well-being of the country, but we are not making the most of them. A recent report by Universities UK showed that four in five year 10 to 12 school pupils know “little or nothing” about degree apprenticeships. If young people are not made aware of the different educational opportunities, particularly vocational and technical, they are unable to make informed choices as the Secretary of State so wishes. I therefore encourage the Government to do more to raise the profile of degree apprenticeships among school leavers and their parents.

I cannot speak about apprenticeships without mentioning the apprenticeship levy. Now more than two years old, the objectives of the levy were sound, but the outcomes it has produced are not. The overall number of apprenticeship starts has fallen since the introduction of the levy, and there is a shocking lack of transparency around how firms’ levy contributions are spent. While many big employers report a significant underspend, there is an overspend on the overall apprenticeship budget, meaning limits on the funding made available for non-levy payers, which are predominantly SMEs.

At the University of Salford, we have around 50 SMEs that want to take on apprentices with us, but we have to turn them away because we do not have sufficient funding. This has to change. SMEs cannot be left out in the cold from the degree apprenticeship revolution, and I hope the Government will look at this to enable apprenticeships, at all levels, to be a viable and valued education and training route for businesses and careers.

The second issue I raise is mental health and the reform of the Mental Health Act. I was pleased to be able to contribute to the review of the current Act by Sir Simon Wessely, and I welcome his report. I hope the Government’s response with a White Paper will be published before Christmas, that we will move more quickly to legislation, and that tonight the Minister will allay the fears that we may have to wait at least two years before legislation is introduced into Parliament.

I will highlight just two of Sir Simon’s recommendations as they relate to the criminal justice system. First, recommendation 130 states that,

“Prison should never be used as a ‘place of safety’ for individuals who meet the criteria for detention under the Mental Health Act”.


I agree. This prohibition, like the use of police cells as a place of safety for children—which should of course be extended to adults—must be enacted as a matter of urgency. Secondly, recommendation 132 concerns the transfer of prisoners sectioned under the Mental Health Act from prison to healthcare. It specifically sets a statutory time limit of 28 days broken down into two 14-day periods, the first for assessment and the second for transfer. This is a more realistic and practical proposal than the similar one I made in my report some years ago, but, again, it must be enacted as a matter of urgency. However, both these recommendations rely on urgent investment in appropriate high-quality alternative facilities as places of safety across the country, and investment in NHS secure beds to ensure that the transfer target can be met.

My third point relates to investment in mental health services for children and young people, and particularly for those with special complex needs. The Association of Child Psychotherapists, among many organisations, has suggested that as many as 40% of children with mental health problems have complex conditions—often arising from early trauma or adverse childhood experiences—which are likely to require specialist input. We urgently need a national multidisciplinary commissioning proposal to address the situation as part of the planned investment in mental health services in the NHS long-term plan.

I hope the Minister will be able to respond to each of these points when she concludes this debate.

Mental Health of Children and Young Adults

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Royall on her excellent opening speech to this very important debate. I also declare my interests in health and education as recorded in the register.

I will take a few moments of my time to sincerely thank both Houses of Parliament, including the Ministers—the noble Baroness, Lady Blackwood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, who has just left the Chamber—and my noble friend Lady Thornton, on behalf of my sister Janet, Gavin, Miles and both of our families for the very kind messages of sympathy following the deaths of my sister, Dr Sally Bradley, and her husband, Bill Harrop, in the Sri Lankan bombings. They were a great comfort to us all. Thank you.

Turning to the subject of the debate, I will first make a brief comment about the funding of mental health services. In a Written Answer, the Minister advised me that the cumulative increase in NHS England’s revenue funding would be £6.2 billion in 2019-20, rising to £25.4 billion in 2022-23. The NHS Long Term Plan indicates that at least £2.3 billion more will be spent on mental health care. Assuming we receive that £2.3 billion, it means that over the period, the percentage spend on mental health will actually reduce from 37% in 2019-20 to 9% in 2022-23. We also know that the proportion of that spend on children and adolescent mental health services is only about 15% of the total. If we are really to tackle the gaps in mental health services for children, a significant further shift in resource allocation from physical to mental health must be made to achieve the ambition of parity of esteem. I should be very grateful for the Minister’s views on that point.

Secondly, I will say a brief word on the workforce. The long-term plan states that,

“we will continue to increase the NHS workforce, training and recruiting more professionals—including thousands more clinical placements for undergraduate nurses”.

There is a real crisis in our current mental health workforce, given the age profile of those extremely dedicated staff and the number who will retire in the next few years. It was disappointing that the workforce plan was not published at the same time as the long-term plan. Obviously, we welcome the work that the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, is undertaking on behalf of the Government, but can the Minister confirm today when the final report will be published and what engagement the noble Baroness has had with universities undertaking high-quality nurse training, such as the University of Salford in Greater Manchester, where I am honoured to be the pro-chancellor? Without a clear, robust workforce plan, whatever the increase in funding, timely access to essential support for the spectrum of mental health needs—the key issue—will not be achieved.

Turning to mental health and well-being in the education system, I will raise two issues. First, many representations—including my own—have been made through YoungMinds and the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition to Ofsted as it reviews its inspection framework to ensure that it assesses and recognises the effectiveness of schools and academies in supporting children and young people’s well-being. I hope the Minister will ensure that it becomes part of the Ofsted framework to ensure that early intervention in schools is comprehensive and consistent across the country.

Secondly, it is clear from the speeches we have already heard that mental health issues in higher education are a crucial challenge that universities need to address. Over the past five years, 94% of universities have experienced a sharp increase in the number of people trying to access support services. I therefore commend to the Minister an initiative in Greater Manchester that established a task force, following a workshop bringing together all the universities in Greater Manchester, the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, mental health experts and clinicians. The task force designed an integrated single pathway and hub for all 100,000 students in Greater Manchester and included a central physical treatment hub in the area of greatest student density—on Oxford Road, near the centre of Manchester—and two further hubs in Salford and Bolton, as well as a clear pathway to enable students to be referred through existing support channels, digital consultation sessions, digital communication with students and many other initiatives. This is a two-year pilot going live at the start of the new academic year in September and co-funded by the universities and the NHS. I hope the Minister will visit Greater Manchester to review this project, with a view to it being rolled out as a model across the country.

Finally, I will make a brief comment on mental health, learning disabilities and the criminal justice system. Over the past few years, since my report was published in 2009, a core all-age liaison and diversion service has been rolled out across the country to support people who hit against or find themselves in the criminal justice system. It is anticipated that the scheme will reach 100% geographical coverage over the next year. The next stage, for the next 10 years, is to address particular health issues. I raise one today—autism—in recognition of how many people with that condition may find themselves a witness, victim or suspect in the criminal justice system. We must improve access to training for all staff working in the criminal justice system—whether in police stations, courts, probation services or prisons—on autism and other key vulnerabilities, and deliver on the commitment in the NHS Long Term Plan to,

“invest in additional support for the most vulnerable children and young people in, or at risk of being in, contact with the youth justice system”.

I hope the Minister will help drive this forward.

NHS Funding: Mental Health Services

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Bradley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of the additional money allocated to the National Health Service budget over each of the next five years will be ring-fenced for the development of mental health services.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

With his consent, I beg leave to ask the Question standing on the Order Paper in the name of my noble friend Lord Bradley. Noble Lords will know why he cannot be with us today, and the House will wish to know how much he and his family appreciate the sympathy that has been expressed.

Health and Social Care Act 2012

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, we should first congratulate and celebrate the establishment of the first NHS hospital at Park Hospital, now Trafford General Hospital, in Greater Manchester. But we should also have concern that the devolution deal for health and social care for Greater Manchester is being impeded because of the Health and Social Care Act. What changes would the Minister recommend to ensure that the ambitions of the devolution deal to integrate health and social care and physical and mental health are progressed as rapidly as possible?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I join the noble Lord in congratulating Trafford General Hospital. I think that one of my colleagues is there today, unveiling a plaque. I am grateful to him also for raising the devo deal for Greater Manchester. It is a very important deal that goes further than any other in the area of health and social care. If it is the case that it is impeded by the Act—and I do not think that that is necessarily a given—I would say that the changes that need to be made ought to be promoted and proposed by Greater Manchester and by the clinicians themselves. That is exactly the sort of thing that the Prime Minister has asked for.

The Long-term Sustainability of the NHS and Adult Social Care

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I first declare my health and university interests in the register. Secondly, I want to clearly record what a pleasure it was to be a member of the committee; I pay tribute to the diligence with which the noble Lord, Lord Patel, led the committee throughout our deliberations. I want to touch on three aspects of our report: the funding of and investment in the NHS and social care, particularly in respect of mental health; workforce planning; and the function of regulators and current governance arrangements. As a quick aside, I want to give some good news to my noble friend Lord Carter of Coles: I was discharged from the University Hospital of South Manchester 55 hours after my hip replacement operation and I pay tribute to the staff for achieving that outcome, although I am still hobbling slightly.

On funding investment in mental health, let me first put my comments in context. In 2015-16, NHS England’s budget was around £116 billion. Of that, the mental health budget was just 13%, but it is known that one in four people suffer from mental health conditions. The NHS Five Year Forward View estimated that the cost to the economy of not tackling mental health is £100 billion a year—effectively the entire cost of the NHS budget. Furthermore, only 7% of the 13% is allocated to children and adolescent mental health services, and while the recent addition of a £1.4 billion investment in CAMHS is welcome, it represents, spread over four years, a mere £350 million a year for the whole of England. That is less than £2 million for each clinical commissioning group, which will set its own independent priorities.

The current funding is woefully inadequate for adults and children, and the ambition to achieve parity of esteem between physical and mental health clearly has a very long way to go. As our report concluded, this will be achieved only when properly addressed through a genuine, long-term strategy of financial investment to meet the needs of people suffering these conditions. The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health was published in 2016 and the Future in Mind report for children in 2015. Although both reports made good recommendations for service improvement, funding remains the key area of concern to make continued improvement and transformational change for genuine integration of services. An example of this is the funding in the Future in Mind report, which is due to last only until 2021, having been extended by one year. That is a mere three years away, but it is non-recurrent spending that is currently not intended to continue beyond that point. A long-term commitment to continuing to fund improvement to children’s mental health care beyond 2021, for at least another 10 years, is essential if any early progress on better services for children and adults is to be sustained.

My second point concerns workforce planning. As our report made clear, the absence of any comprehensive national long-term strategy represents the biggest internal threat to the sustainability of the NHS. Early indications show that the Government’s reforms to undergraduate nursing education in England are failing to increase the number of nursing students required. Overall, applications to nursing courses have fallen by 33% since March 2016. Furthermore, applications from mature students have been disproportionately affected by the funding reforms, dropping by 28%, but it is mature students who are more likely to choose the shortage areas of mental health and learning disabilities. In addition, crucially, some courses may simply become financially unviable for universities to run, with a disastrous knock-on effect for local workforce planning. This must stop. The Government must urgently review their reforms to nursing training and develop a long-term strategy for the whole workforce in the NHS and social care.

My third point relates to governance and regulation. The committee stressed that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 has created, as we have heard, a fragmented system that is frustrating efforts to achieve further integration and the service transformation aims of the Five Year Forward View, which are crucial for the long-term sustainability of the NHS and social care. Too often, the independence of commissioners, particularly CCGs, on the one hand and the independence of providers, particularly NHS acute trusts, on the other creates silo working and barriers to stability of governance in delivering long-term transformation. This is exacerbated by the failure to implement long-term financial certainty.

Laudable attempts are being made for effective partnership working through a whole-system approach. The devolution of health and social care in Greater Manchester, my home area, is a prime example of this. We have also heard of the laudable efforts in Salford, which have achieved remarkable integrated results. But I do not believe that the benefits of such an approach can properly be realised until such partnership working has the crucial legislative back-up that is required.

Further, as we commented in our report, the regulatory framework might also not be fit for purpose. We recommended the merger of NHS England and NHS Improvement, but it would be helpful if the Government looked closely at the clear contradictions often displayed by NHS Improvement and the quality regulator, the Care Quality Commission. Strict financial limits are imposed on the NHS providers by NHSI through rigid financial control totals, while the CQC rightly identifies the need to invest in services to ensure quality of care and patient safety. This causes huge difficulties in practice. How on earth can this be addressed if provider bodies cannot invest beyond their strict control totals?

I would welcome the Minister’s views on these points and an assurance that the Government are genuinely committed to their ambition to move to a long-term financial settlement for the NHS and social care, which our report shows is so desperately needed; that there is a relentless emphasis on general integration of mental and physical health; and that more resources will be moved upstream to underpin preventive and early intervention programmes to support the population’s health and well-being, rather than just its ill health.

Social Care

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am grateful to my noble friend for raising both those points. She is quite right about respite care. Local authorities have a duty to provide it, but I also note that there is pressure on the system. Indeed, the issue of one particular respite home, Nascot Lawn, has been raised. It is something I am interested in and I am looking at it. I will take that point away. We are trying to look at the care service in the round, so respite care must be part of that.

My noble friend is right about paying care workers properly. We have increased the national minimum wage, now moving on to the national living wage, precisely to provide a proper recompense for people who work in that sector and, critically, to start to provide a proper career structure so that people can move on, add to their skills and progress while staying in the caring profession.

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I was pleased to be a member of the Select Committee on the Long-Term Sustainability of the NHS, the title of which was extended to include social care. The consultation seems to be constructed to continue the siloing of social care away from the broader care system between the NHS and social care. Will the Minister confirm that the whole relationship and integration of the NHS and social care will be included in the consultation? Will he confirm when the Government will respond to our Select Committee report, which was published last April?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank the noble Lord for raising that point. I apologise again for the lateness of our response to the Lords committee. What I hope is now the final version is with me for approval, and I hope it will be provided very soon.

On the Green Paper, we all want more integration between health and social care. We know that is important for the people who are increasingly using those services who are in older age, have comorbidities and are moving in and out of different settings of the time. Social care is paid for on a different basis from the NHS. That is critical. We have to get a sustainable financial basis on which we distribute social care while thinking about how it interacts with the health service. The Green Paper is trying to crack a nut that, frankly, has eluded Governments for the last 20 years.