NHS Mental Health Patients in Private Hospitals

Lord Turnberg Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I should remind noble Lords that the noble Baroness said that she was not against private provision out of principle. Private provision can be very helpful and has always worked with the NHS, ever since it was founded. If we think about responders—for example, the impact of lockdown on many people—we have seen an increase in mental health needs. What do you do to increase the provision of mental health services? Do you wait for a new NHS hospital to be built? No—if there is a private provider out there, or an independent provider that can provide those services, you engage them. That is why the NHS and the independent sector, working together, is a really important partnership.

[Lord Turnberg (Lab)]

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware of the Migration Advisory Committee’s report, which pointed out what we all know: poor pay is driving social care workers, including mental health workers, out of the service and into the private sector? For example, they are losing more through inflation than they can keep up with and their pay certainly runs behind private sector pay. I understand that a social care worker can earn more in an Amazon distribution centre than they can in the social care sector. Can the Minister bring to the notice of the Treasury the damage that this policy is doing?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord clearly discusses an important point: we have to have the appropriate workforce. The Government have begun a register of social care to work out who is in the workforce, what qualifications they have and what improvements we have to make to social care. We should also remember that social care providers are a mixture of private homes and state provision. At the same time, we have to make sure that we have the right people, locally trained. For example, the visa system encourages people to come and work in our social care system as well.