Health and Care Bill

Debate between Margaret Greenwood and Steve Brine

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

I have sat through all this debate and taken issue with the Government in some places and supported them in others. I am going to take issue with them on amendment 51. It is always hard to take issue with this Minister, but I seem to have done it twice already today. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and I did not compare notes but seem to have exactly the same comments, which suggests that this is an important amendment.

I want to make a few points about young carers in Hampshire and nationally who have been in touch with me about amendment 51. The amendment that we are being asked to strike out says at paragraph (5)(b) that

“a ‘carer’ means any person, including any child under the age of 18”.

It does not say that in the Minister’s amendment in lieu, but I have heard what he has said today and I hope that it will be heard clearly, because what is said at the Dispatch Box matters a great deal. The Minister in the Lords said on Report that there will be statutory guidance that hospitals “must have regard to” and that that is a sufficient measure for carers. Again, I hear that, but what is said at the Dispatch Box in the Lords matters as well. As young carers have said to me, ahead of today, this is not the same as primary legislative rights and it can be withdrawn or changed at the stroke of a Minister’s pen, intentionally or unintentionally. It does not mean the same for carers and young carers in the daily operation of the system. I would suggest that very few carers, especially young carers, have the energy, the means or the knowledge to go to judicial review if their rights are not followed.

When the Minister winds up, I beg him once again to make it absolutely crystal clear that his amendment in lieu does the same as the Lords amendment that he is asking us to strike out, because young carers, in particular, want and need that reassurance. Other than that, it is a good amendment that is worthy of our support, but I just want to hear a little bit more from my excellent Minister—and now that I have flattered him he cannot deny me.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of Lords amendments 51, 11 and 105. With this Bill, the Government are legislating so that a controversial approach known as “discharge to assess” can be used when discharging patients from hospital. This would see patients discharged from hospital before their social care needs have been assessed, with vulnerable patients potentially sent home without the support that they need in place, leaving families to pick up the pieces and those without family at risk of neglect. Lords amendment 51 is important in relation to that.

The amendment would retain the principle and duty on a hospital, whether an NHS hospital or an independent hospital, to ensure that a patient must be safe to discharge from hospital, and it mirrors carers’ rights established by the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Act 2003. This important amendment would recognise the vital role played by carers across the country in looking after their loved ones. However, it does not stop the Government from legislating for discharge to assess, a policy that has been piloted and was included in the Coronavirus Act 2020 as a temporary measure. I am concerned that the Government are not only going ahead with an approach fraught with risk for vulnerable patients, but are doing so in the knowledge that an independent evaluation commissioned by NHS England of the implementation of the hospital discharge policy has still not been published, despite the Government promising that the evaluation was due to report in autumn last year.

I am concerned, too, that the Government do not even understand the clinical outcomes of discharge to assess. When I submitted a question last year asking the Government how many patients discharged in this way were readmitted within 30 days, the Government said that they did not hold the data. I believe that to be a dereliction of duty.

Lord amendment 51 would put in place important rights for patients and carers at what can be a very difficult time. I note that the Government disagree with the amendment and have tabled an amendment in lieu, but I believe that it waters down carers’ and patients’ rights. It merely proposes that

“the relevant trust must, as soon as is feasible after it begins making any plans relating to the discharge, take any steps that it considers appropriate to involve…the patient, and…any carer of the patient.”

That gives inappropriate levels of discretion to trusts over patients’ and carers’ involvement, instead of guaranteeing their rights.

Lords amendment 11 is a step in the right direction, although it does not go far enough. It would ensure that conflict of interest rules that apply to integrated care boards would apply to commissioning sub-committees of integrated care boards. The Government have said that they disagree with the amendment and have proposed an amendment in lieu that would prohibit a chair of an ICB from approving or appointing someone as a member of any committee or sub-committee that exercises commissioning functions

“if the chair considers that the appointment could reasonably be regarded as undermining the independence of the health service because of the candidate’s involvement with the private healthcare sector or otherwise.”

I am concerned that the phrasing is clearly open to interpretation, and it by no means rules out people with interests in private healthcare from sitting on these sub-committees.

It is wrong, too, that the power should rest with one person, namely the chair of the ICB. If we are serious about providing governance that rules out the possibility of the private sector influencing the expenditure of public money, an organisation carrying out the functions of an ICB on its behalf should be a statutory NHS body. It is a great pity that the Government have not legislated for that.

We cannot forget that NHS guidance last year stated that the Health and Care Bill, if enacted, would enable ICBs to devolve budgets to provider collaboratives, which are one of a complex array of sub-committees that could take on commissioning functions. Representatives of private companies, which are accountable to shareholders, should not be able to influence these commissioning sub- committees in any way. Lords amendment 11 at least improves the original Bill, and I therefore welcome it.

I also welcome Lords amendment 105, which would mean that the membership of an ICB must include at least one member with expertise and knowledge of mental health in the integrated care board’s area. The fact that the Government did not provide for that originally shows that they are still not treating mental health with the level of seriousness it deserves. It is disappointing that the Government have indicated that they disagree with the amendment.

The amendment in lieu that the Government have proposed makes provision for the chair of an ICB to act

“with a view to ensuring that at least one of the ordinary members has knowledge and experience in connection with services relating to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.”

The Government have watered down the amendment, and it is regrettable that they have removed expertise in mental health as a characteristic that this member of an ICB must have. It is feasible that that person could be a manager who once dealt with mental health rather than a mental health clinician or health professional. I noticed that in the Minister’s opening remarks, he commented that ICBs would be able to commission out of area. I would be grateful if he gave some clarity about how A&E services will be guaranteed to people should they happen to fall ill out of area.

This is a devastating piece of legislation and it is all the more shocking that the Government have pressed ahead with it at a time when NHS staff are exhausted and patients and people across the country are still struggling with the pandemic. It will embed a postcode lottery and open up the NHS to widespread privatisation. In so doing, it does a disservice to patients in England and to NHS staff.

The Bill provides for the scope of “Agenda for Change”, the pay and terms and conditions of about a million people who work in the health service, to be undermined; it allows for NHS professions to be taken out of regulation; and, as I have mentioned in relation to Lords amendment 51, it will allow for vulnerable patients to be discharged from hospital before their social care needs assessments have been carried out. The NHS is our most treasured institution and I pay tribute to all those campaigners across the country who have fought hard to oppose the Bill.

NHS Winter Crisis

Debate between Margaret Greenwood and Steve Brine

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Members appear to be heckling themselves.

The hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) said that the NHS was a political organisation. I totally disagree. The NHS is an organisation run by hard-working people who are public servants. They go to work every day to do a job for our constituents, and the NHS is not a political organisation. The Labour party is a political organisation, and it is politicising the NHS—

[Margaret Greenwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Brine]

I will not give way; the hon. Lady has had her say.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) spoke about leadership, and he was absolutely right. He knows the Luton and Dunstable University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which has been ably led by Dame Pauline Philip. She has achieved 98.6% of patients meeting the four-hour target. That is the kind of leadership that can be achieved, which is why Dame Pauline was brought in to NHS England to help with our national response to winter pressures.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) said that this was all about outcomes and that, on cancer, we do not do well. We have had the best cancer outcomes ever in our country, but I agree that our ambition for the long term needs to be even better and that we need to aim higher. His point on a royal commission is noted.

My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) spoke about the out-of-hospital care work that Henley’s hospital is doing. I thank him very much for his invitation. My ministerial colleagues also heard what he had to say, and it was good to hear about the cross-party working that is going on in Oxfordshire. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Damien Moore), a new Member of the House, talked about joined-up care and continuous improvement. He reminded us that without a strong economy there is no strong NHS. This is not the Government’s money; it is the public’s money. We need to spend it well, and I think we are doing so.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) spoke about community pharmacies, a subject close to my heart. They play a key part, and better integration of them within the NHS is part of the prevention and primary care agenda. I completely agree with the points that he made. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) spoke about the A&E hub at Musgrove Park Hospital. That sounds very interesting indeed, and the new Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), was also interested to hear what she had to say. We would like to come and see it, and we will take her up on her invitation.

Finally, I welcome back my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) and congratulate her on the birth of Clifford. She spoke very well, as always, about the integration of health and social care, saying that it can only make sense and will only serve to make the preparations for next winter better.

I hope to end this debate on a note on which both sides of the House can agree. We are all truly thankful for the extraordinary dedication of NHS staff in caring for their patients—our constituents—during this extremely challenging time. As ever, they are doing a brilliant job.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House expresses concern at the effect on patient care of the closure of 14,000 hospital beds since 2010; records its alarm at there being vacancies for 100,000 posts across the NHS; regrets the decision of the Government to reduce social care funding since 2010; notes that hospital trusts have been compelled by NHS England to delay elective operations because of the Government’s failure to allocate adequate to the NHS; condemns the privatisation of community health services; and calls on the Government to increase cash limits for the current year to enable hospitals to resume a full service to the public, including rescheduling elective operations, and to report to the House by Oral Statement and written report before 1 February 2018 on what steps it is taking to comply with this resolution.