People with Disabilities: Reporting Abuse

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I am happy to give the noble Baroness that commitment. Domestic abuse in any situation is absolutely unacceptable and we are happy to commit to supporting her.

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, a reverse of the abuse that the noble Baroness commented on was highlighted at a meeting in this House only two or three weeks ago, when we had a whole load of international psychologists around. A couple were there who said that their son, who is a lawyer but is on the spectrum, had a meltdown one Friday night. He was arrested and stayed in prison until Monday night/Tuesday morning because there was absolutely nobody around who was able to verify that he had this problem. I suggest to the Minister that one of our biggest problems is that there is not enough knowledge, by the police or by others, about how to handle such occasions.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank my noble friend for raising this matter and I am very sorry about the experience he highlighted. One of the measures that has been implemented in order to improve this situation is liaison services between police and mental health trusts to ensure that expertise is on the ground should individuals find themselves in situations such as he described. This has dramatically reduced the number of such situations. I would be very happy to write to him giving examples of where this has improved the situation.

Health Inequality: Autism and Learning Disabilities

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, we are very fortunate to have such a powerful advocate for the way in which to deal with this. On my own front, I have a young grandson who is on the autistic spectrum. We are also getting many more people with autism coming into the Motability scheme, so I am interested on two fronts. In advance of today’s gathering I spoke to the chair of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Educational and Child Psychology, Dr Vivian Hill. She also looks after our little boy. We have talked about the child, but it is the stress on the family that is immense. I see despair and sadness in my daughter—she says to me sometimes, “What is going to happen to him if I am not alive? Who’s going to look after him?” She brought up one issue on the health side, in particular. There is a lady—I will not give her name—who is now 35; she has a university degree, and works with Vivian at University College London interviewing people for the educational course. She has been in and out of hospital this year with various problems, to say the least. She said yesterday that she calculated that, for the first six months of the year, it has probably cost the health service £50,000—but they stopped the welfare attention that she used to have once a fortnight, which could have made a huge difference in understanding what the situation is. She was saying that there should be a way—in the same way that there is in collecting tax, for example—that a name flashes up immediately, in any ward anywhere throughout the country, if somebody is on the spectrum.

I also spoke yesterday to two fascinating headmasters in the Horsham area about money and so on. Many noble Lords have talked about how early it is possible to identify children on the spectrum. Everybody here feels that if you can get a child into a mainstream school, they have a chance of making it in life—a chance of acquiring self-esteem and of getting somewhere. We have not talked about money but really we are talking about money being made available to achieve that. If one looks at this from a taxpayer’s point of view, it is reckoned that if things were handled differently on the health service side, we would save a huge amount of money, although there is no point in my trying to guess the figures. Our little boy was diagnosed at the age of three. He was very fortunate and is getting through it very strongly. From the perspective of the taxpayer, the savings from early diagnosis—as a long-term investment—are immense.

In conclusion, as has been said, most of us in this Room are very fortunate. We must help these people, many of whom have brilliant minds and want to play their part in society. There has been enough talk.

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

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, it is with some trepidation that I take part in this debate. The professionalism of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, together with everything that has been produced with all-party support, shows this House at its best.

Many years ago, I was at the Grosvenor Hotel attending a ball. The lady with me, who was beautiful and was wonderfully dressed in a long gown, was a senior nursing sister at St George’s Hospital at Hyde Park Corner. The music was suddenly stopped and it was announced that an IRA bomb had just hit the Hilton Hotel. As noble Lords may remember, there were a very large number of casualties. My companion grabbed her bag and we rushed out. Everything had stopped. Police cars were all over the place. She ran into the middle of the road and stopped a police car. The bloke yelled out, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She said, “I’m a nursing sister. Get me down there fast”. I followed along. When we got inside, there were a couple of house doctors standing at the side. She said, “If you can’t do anything better, get out of the way”. As noble Lords can imagine, it was a pretty awful evening. At about 1 am, she came over to me with a white coat, covered in blood, over her gown, and said to me, “Jeffrey, I’m starving. Where can we eat?”

Another personal experience occurred at St George’s Hospital, Tooting, 11 years ago. I was taken there from where I was in the country when I had a heart attack, and it was quite an experience, although it is something that you know can happen. It was the first time that I had ever been in an ambulance. I had seen many ambulances but had never been in one. Because the driver had taken the wrong route, the advice given by the doctors who were waiting was that I had better have a clot-buster. I said to the guy looking after me in the ambulance, “What the hell’s that?” He said, “I’ve only done it once but I’m told that you had better have it. But you must read a form first because of the chance that you won’t make it”. So I had it and I made it, and my experience of the National Health Service on those two occasions is that its staff must be the most trusted people in our society and, if I may say so, the most loved.

Years ago, the late Lord Goodman, with whom I founded Motability, was asked by Barbara Castle to examine the funding position of the National Health Service. He carried out that report and I saw it at the time. At its conclusion, he said, “My strong advice is that you should charge £5 a night for every hospital bed”. If you looked at the figures, you would have seen that that was meaningful. Sadly, it was turned down.

One of my companies built hospitals, and one knows, sadly, the way in which the management change the plans so many times so that the overruns and costs become extraordinary. It is my view that, on the management side, a great deal can be done.

Nearly 20 years ago, when Labour was in power, I was asked whether I would be prepared to look into the health service. I said that I would do it only if it was not a royal commission that would be kicked into the long grass but was done on an all-party basis and I could choose the members of the committee. Sadly, it was turned down and so I never had that experience.

The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, mentioned the blame culture. Having wandered around the health profession and mixed with a lot of people there, I know that that culture is having a devastating adverse effect on morale and inhibits positive progress and action being taken by managers.

At the start of the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said that the National Health Service should be free at the point of need. I agree with that, but what I do not agree with is the misuse of the health service and it being taken for granted. Let me give an example. I have talked to people about the number of no-shows in out-patients and those wasting time by turning up at the emergency ward. I have spoken about this with senior registrars in three hospitals and my noble friend Lord Bridgeman will talk later about the views and role of GPs and doctors themselves. In practice, one-third of people who turn up have no need of any medical help and should have stayed at home and one-third should have been treated by a nurse or gone to a chemist. Others will go into this in much greater detail, but in my view the GP is the key factor for what will happen in the future.

My final point is on the NAO. I am not sure that the views of the NAO are right. Putting the care of the elderly under one umbrella may not be the right answer. I am particularly interested in what happens because I am heavily involved in this area and that of the mentally disabled. I find that people want time and they suffer from loneliness. It is not just about care: loneliness must come into the thinking on this.

I will finish by telling the Minister about one aspect of charging. When people get things totally for free—I have found this myself in the past—they do not value them in the same way as when they have put something into it themselves. You should pay £10 a visit to go to the doctor and if you do not turn up at out-patients you should pay £10. That would help enormously. The important point is that people need to value things, and they will do so if they have put in something themselves.

Children and Young People: Mental Health Services

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I agree that that is a challenge. There is a plan to create 21,000 new medical and allied posts by 2021, which would be the biggest expansion in mental health services that has ever taken place—certainly in this country but even in Europe. How we are going to achieve that is set out in the draft workforce strategy that Health Education England has published. A big part of that is the creation of mental health support teams in schools. That will take time—we need to be realistic—but it is an ambitious goal and we know that that support is wanted and needed.

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, I am interested on two fronts. Motability over the next three years will be getting a quarter of a million people coming into the scheme and a large number of them will be children. This will put a major strain on the service they require. I am interested also on a personal front. I have a marvellous young grandson who is on the upper end of autism, so I take a deep interest in both. I thank the Minister for what he has read out from the other place but I disagree. I am afraid that we are lacking hugely in this country. Basically, we are short of educational psychologists. I am no expert but, as any doctor will tell you, the earlier you can identify mental health problems—at three, four or five—gives an opportunity of treating them generally. The Green Paper is interesting but could the Minister do some more work on the ground to find out whether what he is being told is actually happening in practice in local authorities?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for that. I think it is a fair challenge. I hope he will be reassured that of the 21,000 more mental health professionals we intend to recruit, 1,700 are therapists—including psychotherapists, educational therapists and others.