Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Norman Lamb and Helen Jones

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point. I have the same experience in my county of Norfolk. Clinical commissioning groups are responsible for commissioning stroke care. The Herefordshire CCG is working with Wye Valley NHS Trust to improve the quality of stroke services and is seeking to establish a sustainable, hyper-acute service in the county, and it is clearly necessary that that is achieved.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Emotional and psychological support after stroke can be just as important as physical care, yet many patients do not get the care they need even though research shows that investment in this area can not only benefit patients but save the NHS money in the long run. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that all stroke survivors get the right emotional and psychological support after stroke?

[Norman Lamb]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The cardiovascular disease outcomes strategy, which was published last year, acknowledges the importance of access to psychological therapies. Indeed, there is some really innovative work going on. A psychiatrist called Andre Tylee in London is doing work with heart patients, bringing in psychological therapies and improving their physical as well as their mental health outcomes, and the hon. Lady is absolutely right to make the case for that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Norman Lamb and Helen Jones

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

When the Government decided to slash council budgets and, therefore, adult social services, did they know what effect that would have on hospitals, particularly A and E, and decide to carry on anyway, in which case they are too callous to be running the NHS, or did they not know, in which case they are too stupid to be running the NHS?

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

Throughout this Parliament we have ensured that extra funding has gone into social care to recognise the fact that council budgets have been under strain. The point that I made earlier—that there has been a 50,000 reduction in delayed discharges to social care—demonstrates just how well they are doing under significant pressure.

NHS Commissioning Board

Debate between Norman Lamb and Helen Jones

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I think my hon. Friend makes a valuable point. [Interruption.]

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Last week, the Leader of the House insisted that the regulations did not—

[Helen Jones]

Last week, during business questions, the Leader of the House said that the regulations would not introduce compulsory competitive tendering in the NHS; today the Minister has said that he will have to revise them in case they do. Is it not a fact that the Government actually do not have a clue about what they are doing? If the Minister wishes to disprove that, will he tell us exactly what changes he will make to the regulations—or will this just be like the pause in the Health and Social Care Bill, after which it carried on regardless?

[Norman Lamb]

The Leader of the House was absolutely correct in stating—[Interruption.] If the hon. Lady will listen to my answer, she may benefit from it. The Leader of the House made it absolutely clear in the House last week that the regulations would not introduce compulsory competitive tendering. We are amending them because there was legitimate and understandable concern about the impact of some of the provisions. We will make the position clear so that the policy intent of the Health and Social Care Act is implemented faithfully in these regulations.

Winterbourne View

Debate between Norman Lamb and Helen Jones

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right. The new structure provides far greater local accountability than we have ever had. One of my great criticisms of the old primary care trusts is that they are, in effect, completely unaccountable to their local communities. Health and wellbeing boards scrutinising what clinical commissioning groups and the local authority are doing can be very powerful. He also mentioned HealthWatch. Like its predecessor organisations, the local involvement networks or LINks, it will have the power to go into all care and health settings and inspect what is going on, often behind closed doors. We encourage HealthWatch to use those powers to shine a light on what is happening in some of those places.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

The Minister has rightly referred to the amount of money paid for patients in Winterbourne View, but does he also recognise that good-quality care in a community is also expensive and requires a lot of highly trained staff? Given the cuts to local authority budgets, is he convinced that sufficient resources are available, even if budgets are pooled? When he knows how many patients need to be transferred back into the community, will he commit to come to the House to make a statement on whether the right resources are available?

[Norman Lamb]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question. What was striking when I visited Tower Hamlets this morning and talked to the leaders on the health and local authority sides was that, despite being the third most deprived borough in the country, Tower Hamlets is one of the lower spenders on institutional care because it is doing things the right way. Tower Hamlets has not referred a single person from the borough to an assessment and treatment centre for three whole years. Tower Hamlets has demonstrated not only that that is possible, but that it often ends up costing much less to provide the right care in the community—[Interruption.] Well, that is what the borough leaders find. That is what I have been told by them and by many other people in the sector. An individual should have the care that they need, and if the cost of that package in the community is substantial, it should be met. We should never compromise on that. All I am saying is that the overall cost of providing the right kind of care in the community often looks lower, when compared with those institutions in which the cost is extraordinarily high—as much as £3,500 per week per patient.