Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Norman Lamb and Tom Clarke

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

7. With reference to his Department’s publication “Transforming care: A national response to Winterbourne View Hospital”, published in December 2012, if he will take steps to ensure that the statutory guidance implementing the adult autism strategy uses clear language and is mandatory.

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

The revised autism statutory guidance will be written in clear and accessible language. It will include existing obligations from the 2010 strategy and recent legislation such as the Care Act 2014. Local authorities and NHS bodies are required to take the guidance into account, or provide a good reason for not doing so.

[Mr Clarke]

The Minister will be aware that, under the Mental Health Act 1983, people with autism can be compulsorily detained for assessment and treatment although there is no evidence of mental illness. Will he join the National Autistic Society and others in endorsing the Justice for LB Bill campaign and seeking to end that wholly unacceptable practice?

[Norman Lamb]

The right hon. Gentleman has raised an incredibly important point. I, too, pay tribute to the campaigning of Justice for LB. We are strengthening the guidance relating to the code of practice under the Mental Health Act, and that strengthened guidance will be published shortly. We are considering whether amendments to the Act are needed, and we are also drafting a Green Paper. I should be happy to discuss the issue further with the right hon. Gentleman, and to have further meetings with campaigners.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Norman Lamb and Tom Clarke

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

8. What the new deadline will be for moving people with a learning disability out of assessment and treatment units and into community provision.

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

We are working with NHS England to set out clear expectations for progress and improved rates of discharge. This includes NHS England producing an action plan to measure progress against. The Winterbourne View joint improvement programme is working with local areas to identify issues and to support them to make progress.

[Mr Clarke]

Given the severe lack of funding in this area and the need for development of housing and proper support within the community to avoid the recurrence of, for example, what happened in Winterbourne, will the Minister explain how he is addressing this problem and who he is working with?

[Norman Lamb]

I applaud the right hon. Gentleman’s work on this, and it is very important that we make it very clear to the public that all of us share the ambition to get people out of institutional care when they do not need to be there. Actually, it is not about the lack of resources. The scandal is that, as a system, we are spending a fortune on institutional care when people could very often be much better cared for in their own communities. The good thing is that Simon Stevens, the new chief executive of NHS England, has shown a personal interest in this. I have discussed it many times with him. We have asked NHS England to produce an action plan by the end of August, demonstrating exactly how it will speed up the progress of getting people out of institutional care.

Learning Disabilities (Care in the Community)

Debate between Norman Lamb and Tom Clarke

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Norman Lamb]

I very much agree and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Providers of supported living care need to be much more central to the task of changing this culture. Indeed, I have asked for a meeting to be arranged that will bring in some of those providers, with Simon Stevens and the chief nursing officer, Jane Cummings, who I am pleased is now in charge of this programme, to demonstrate how they can play a part in effecting change.

I also want to acknowledge the work that has been done from the concordat and what has been achieved by NHS England and other delivery partners.

It is appropriate for us to start by looking at the people who were in Winterbourne View before it closed. I am pleased to report that NHS England’s Improving Lives team, who include senior clinicians, social care staff, third sector partners and family members of people with learning disabilities, have now reviewed the care of all but one of the 47 people who were in Winterbourne View, and the care of the one remaining individual will be reviewed by the end of this week. Those reviews have resulted in some people moving out of hospital into circumstances that are more appropriate for them as individuals.

The Government have provided funding so that the people who were in Winterbourne View can have additional trauma assessments where the need has been identified and they have consented to those assessments. We are providing additional funding to support families through a telephone helpline, regular telephone counselling and family support days. The funding will also support other people with learning disabilities—including the 17-year-old girl whom I visited a fortnight ago—who have experienced institutional abuse, and help their families.

Involving people with learning disabilities and their families is key to ensuring that the work that we are doing means that they have a better experience and better outcomes. We have provided funding to organisations to allow people with learning disabilities and their families to share their views with us, so that we can listen to them and respond to the concerns that they raise.

We have also made progress on other Winterbourne View concordat commitments. For example, guidance has been developed on commissioning advocacy for people with learning disabilities so that, again, they get a voice and they get access to information, advice and support when necessary. It is vital that local commissioners ensure that people have proper access to high-quality advocacy where they need it.

[Mr Tom Clarke]

I am very grateful for the Minister’s tone and I know that he feels deeply bound to respond to the problems that we are discussing. I welcome the fact that he mentions advocacy. Will he assure us that his Department will do everything possible to insist that advocacy remains at the heart of all our discussions?

[Norman Lamb]

I very much will do that. I have specifically talked to Simon Stevens about that. I am conscious that time is tight, so let me just mention one or two specific things. First, there is now movement on people getting plans for leaving institutional care. NHS England expects that clinical commissioning groups and its area teams will discharge or transfer 35% or 892 of the 2,615 people currently in in-patient settings within the next 12 months. That is 385 within three months, 266 within six months and 241 within 12 months. That is what they have come up with in terms of going through individual plans. We now have to ensure that it happens, and there is no guarantee in my mind that it will happen, so we have to hold the system to account.

I have mentioned that we have to unlock barriers wherever they exist. For me, one of the barriers is this. When someone transfers from the responsibility of NHS England to the local authority, the responsibility for the funding transfers to the local authority. That creates a disincentive for the local authority to take responsibility for that person, so the money has to flow with the individual. We have to ease the transition and not make money a barrier to an appropriate transfer to supported living in the community.

I have also mentioned that we have to address the question of the clinical judgments. That is not to say that in individual cases a clinician will not be making their best judgment about an individual’s need to stay in a particular setting, but surely the family need access to a second opinion to be able to challenge that judgment. I am conscious—I say no more than this—that the clinicians who are making the judgment are often employed by the organisation that is receiving payment for providing the bed to the individual. Whether it is in the state sector, the independent sector or the voluntary sector does not matter. The right to a second opinion is essential.

In the moments left to me, let me say that I remain totally committed to getting the culture change that we are all after. What has happened so far is not acceptable.

Care Bill [Lords]

Debate between Norman Lamb and Tom Clarke

Monday 10th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I take very seriously the point that the hon. Lady has raised, but if she will allow me to continue to present my argument, I shall be happy to return to it later if necessary.

The important new measures include an express duty to promote people’s well-being—a duty to shape local care markets to ensure that they are sustainable and diverse, and offer high quality care and support. The Department will work with the local government and adult social care sector to produce statutory guidance on local authority commissioning of care and support. However, a CQC review of commissioning remains an option. I reassure right hon. and hon. Members that we will review evidence of concerns about local authorities’ commissioning practice to establish whether it is appropriate to ask the CQC to undertake a targeted review under section 48 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. Getting the message out to commissioners that the powers will be used is important in itself to concentrate minds. They will be under the spotlight if they fail in their commissioning responsibilities.

New clause 12 would require the CQC to consider integration of care as part of its performance assessments of registered providers of health and adult social care. In Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam made a strong case for the new system of performance ratings to be carried out by the CQC to look at care pathways, rather than focusing on separate institutions in isolation. He makes a very good case. I explained that a central tenet for the Government is that the independence of the CQC improves its effectiveness as a regulator. Clause 89 removes nine separate powers for the Secretary of State to intervene in the day-to-day workings of the commission, and we have deliberately removed the Secretary of State’s power to devise or approve the system for performance assessments and ratings.

The CQC has to be responsible for the system of performance assessment that it introduces, and placing specific requirements on the commission in legislation would not help in that regard. That is not to say that the CQC should not look into the integration of care. I told the Committee that I would pursue that matter in my discussions with the CQC, and I have done so. I have spoken to the CQC chair, David Prior, and to the chief executive. I am pleased to say that in that regard we are pushing at an open door. They absolutely understand the case that my right hon. Friend makes.

In recent weeks, the commission’s chief executive, David Behan, has set out plans for the CQC to carry out thematic inspections to look at the care pathways for different conditions. One such thematic programme will look at how people with dementia are handled by relevant services in a geographical area—acute health care, primary health care and adult social care, for example. Another is looking at how people move across transition points, such as when a disabled child becomes an adult—a point at which too often services fall down.

[Mr Tom Clarke]

The Minister has outlined that he wants to work with the commission, local authorities and others in these important matters. Does he agree that there are issues on which organisations such as Mencap have a lot to contribute? Would he see the Government’s approach on those matters as being inclusive in that respect?

[Norman Lamb]

I totally agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The more that we talk to organisations with expertise such as Mencap when we are designing the commissioning and inspecting of facilities, the better we are at the job that we do. We must not think that we have all the answers in Whitehall.

A future thematic review could consider the integration of health and social care services either in a particular location or across a particular condition. I am keen that the commission pursue that further, but, as I say, I think that we are pushing at an open door in that regard.

New clause 33 would create the new post of candour commissioner for England. The commissioner would be tasked with protecting and promoting a culture of candour and disclosure in the health and social care sectors, an ambition that I think we would all share. The Government are taking steps to make a culture of candour and openness a reality. We will put in place a statutory duty of candour on providers registered with the CQC—I am personally delighted that we are doing that. That will require providers of health and social care to be open with patients and service users where there are failings in care.

I commend to the House the excellent review of the duty of candour by Professor Norman Williams and Sir David Dalton, which was published last week. We will consider the recommendations of the review—I repeat that I thought it was excellent—as we develop regulations to implement the duty of candour as a requirement for registration with the CQC. We are also enhancing the professional duty of candour through changes to professional guidance and codes.

Effective whistleblowing and complaints systems are vital parts of an open and transparent culture. As the Committee Chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), pointed out, what we are after is a system in which whistleblowing is no longer necessary because the culture is open. That will help to improve public and patient safety and the quality of services provided.

This Government support the right of staff working in the NHS to raise concerns and expect all NHS organisations to support staff who wish to do so. NHS organisations have to have in place policies that are compliant with whistleblowing legislation. Also, the CQC’s new inspection system will include discussions with hospitals about how they deal with whistleblowers, and the CQC is reviewing its arrangement for handling whistleblowing concerns. The CQC’s national adviser for patient safety has recently established, and chairs, a forum of whistleblowers, so the CQC understands the issue and recognises its central role in this regard.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) will agree with me that we will only achieve the change in culture that we are seeking by creating champions for candour and openness throughout every tier of every organisation—people who really believe in openness in both health and adult social care. Promoting and protecting candour is the business of every member of staff in health and social care. Indeed, the Dalton-Williams review prefaced its discussion of the candour threshold with a clear recommendation to establish a culture of candour based on training and support of staff and more accurate reporting of safety incidents.

I would also point out that the creation of a new office of candour commissioner would need funding. Given the measures we are already putting in place to support candour, I am not convinced that a candour commissioner would be the best use of finite resources.

New clause 28 would require the Secretary of State to commission an independent review of whistleblowing arrangements within six months of this Bill coming into force. I recognise that reviews, as suggested in this amendment, can play a key role in ensuring that legislation is operating as intended—a form of post-legislative scrutiny. It is for this reason that the Government, through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, have recently carried out “The Whistleblowing Framework: Call for Evidence”. This call for evidence is part of a review of the effectiveness of the legislation around whistleblowing, specifically considering whether the protections available in the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 for those wishing to raise concerns are effective. Members of the public and experts have been asked to submit evidence to BIS’s review. The findings will be published this spring. My Department has submitted evidence to this review on behalf of the health and care sectors, having taken the views of the professional regulatory bodies, but I do not support putting a commitment in primary legislation to undertake a review such as the one suggested in the amendment.

New clause 10 relates to the single failure regime for NHS trusts and foundation trusts. I repeat the assurance given in Committee that where the chief inspector of hospitals finds that patients are exposed to an immediate risk of harm, he will continue to be able to take swift and decisive action under section 31 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. This new clause would prevent the CQC from being able to trigger trust special administration on quality grounds while it was using its powers under section 31. The chief inspector needs to be able to draw on the full range of the CQC’s powers to ensure regulatory action is appropriate in each case. We must not set unnecessary constraints on the CQC’s ability to address failings in quality. There may well be situations where the CQC needs urgently to suspend a particular service and also to consider trust special administration to ensure that high quality services can be sustained.

Let me make it clear that the CQC will be able to trigger trust special administration only where there has been a serious failure of quality and it is appropriate to do so. There are a number of ways to support trusts to improve, ensuring that special administration is only the last resort. Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority have a range of intervention powers and can also place trusts and foundation trusts in special measures to provide a package of measures to support improvement.

Winterbourne View

Debate between Norman Lamb and Tom Clarke

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is absolutely right that one thing uncovered, both at Winterbourne View and in the Care Quality Commission survey of similar institutions, was that people were sometimes placed hundreds of miles away from their families. That still continues; that is what we have to address. My hon. Friend asks about what in the proposals will address that and ensure that it does not happen. Every part of the system is signed up through the concordat to changing what has been an unacceptable practice. People will be held to account. I said in my statement that I will chair a programme board throughout this period of change, and we will publish regular updates so we can, in a sense, hold to account every primary care trust or clinical commissioning group and every local authority that fails to change in the way expected.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister’s pledge—made twice during his statement—that the Government will go ahead with a review of those “inappropriately placed” and to make it available by 2014. Will there be any element of advocacy during the review, including that endorsed under the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986? Finally, do the Government think it possible—if not by this means, by other means—to consider the fairly large number of people inappropriately placed in prison?

[Norman Lamb]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his important questions. First, we want to ensure that advocacy is available to help those families and individuals, ensuring that they are placed in appropriate settings and away from these long-stay institutions that we all find completely unacceptable. I very much agree with him on that, and I find myself in agreement with him again on prisons. We shall come forward next year with some clearer proposals on approaches to diversion—assessing someone’s needs before they end up in prison, diverting them, if at all possible, to much more appropriate settings.