Carers

Debate between Paul Burstow and Jim Cunningham

Thursday 20th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of carers.

I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for choosing this as the first debate of this parliamentary Session since the re-establishment of that Committee. I very much appreciate the fact that within the space of a few days after the celebration of national carers week, the Backbench Business Committee was able to grant us this time to examine how better to support carers in this country and to recognise the extraordinary contribution that each and every carer makes to their families and our society. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) and the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) for their support for this application and for the contributions that I look forward to hearing from them later in the debate.

As I said, last week was national carers week. With over 10,000 events up and down the country—I am sure that many hon. Members will have had the opportunity to participate in them in their constituency—this was the biggest carers week so far. Here in Westminster, MPs were invited to a variety of events, including a speed dating event with carers with a wide range of life experiences. I had the opportunity to meet, among others, a woman called Karen whose husband has Parkinson’s. She told me about her experience of being a carer for someone with that particular condition and about the isolation she felt, having taken on that caring role. She conveyed a sense of being increasingly excluded from participating in many aspects of society. I met other carers involved with Marie Curie, who told me how, because of the nature of the diagnosis and the rapid progression of the cancers in question, they experienced additional strains and burdens in trying to get the right support at the right time for their loved ones. The week concluded with a lively carers question time event, in which the Minister and a range of experts participated.

This year’s theme was “Prepared to Care?” It highlighted the fact that people who take on caring roles are often not prepared for the physical and emotional impact of caring, nor for its impact on their lives in other ways, not least financially. In that sense, it is worth stressing that this is not a “them and us” issue. It is easy to think about this as something that is going to happen to other people, whereas the figures clearly show that three out of five of us will be a carer at some point in our lives. It will touch all of us, either through personal experience or through our family’s experiences.

I want to pay particular tribute to the carers I have met over the years in my constituency during my time as a Member of Parliament. I want to thank the Sutton Carers Centre for being a lifeline for thousands of carers—young and old alike. The carers centre in Sutton has been my guide and teacher on carer issues over the past 15 years. Whether through shadowing carers to learn directly from them or meeting carers at the centre, I have found that the things they want—the things they tell me they want—are not impossible or unreasonable. They do not want to feel that everything is a constant battle—a battle to get a diagnosis, a battle to get an assessment, a battle to get support, a battle to get a break, or, indeed, a battle to navigate around the system.

Over the years, I have met and listened to many carers in my constituency and I have met carers for whom the lifeline that keeps them sane and keeps them connected is not the formal social care support, nor even the carer centre. It may be, for instance, the local bowling club, as I learned from one of the carers whom I shadowed. The determination of the club’s members to support a friend was the most important thing in that person’s life. Not enough is made of such informal, often fragile networks of support, although they often represent the vital difference between just surviving and having a life.

There is clear evidence that the caring role takes its toll on people, physically, emotionally and financially. Six out of 10 carers report experiencing depression because of their caring role, and, as I have said, caring can be a lonely business: three out of five carers say that they have experienced difficulties in maintaining relationships with friends. Another problem is the desire of many carers to stay in the workplace so that they can remain connected through their work. More than 3 million are trying to balance their caring responsibilities with paid work, often at the expense of working hours or their career prospects.

Last June I hosted a carers summit with the forum Employers for Carers, led by BT. The aim was to explore opportunities to help carers to remain in the workplace. BT and other members of the forum, such as British Gas, have a good track record in that regard. They invest in their staff and want to retain them, so identifying and supporting carers seems logical to them. The cost to the bottom line of a business of replacing a member of staff can be huge, and one of the purposes of the summit was to enable more employers to see the business case for carer-friendly employment practices. The Government subsequently established a “task and finish” group to consider ways of creating an environment in which people could balance their caring responsibilities with their careers. That work is vital.

According to a recent survey conducted by YouGov for Carers UK, an estimated 2.3 million people have given up work at some point to care for an older or disabled loved one. One in four gave up work or reduced their working hours because the cost of replacement care was too high, and a similar number reported that services were not flexible enough to meet their needs. The impact of being forced to give up work to care for a loved one on an individual’s finances alone is clear, but the London School of Economics has estimated that the hidden cost to the economy—in benefits and lost tax revenues—is a staggering £1.3 billion a year, every year. When lost earnings are taken into account, the figure can rise to as much as £5.3 billion. That is not a cost that the United Kingdom can continue to bear as a consequence of a failure to act and provide the safeguards, supports and systems that would enable carers to remain in employment.

There is an urgent need to us to reframe the debate. We must stop focusing on the burden on the economy, and see caring as an asset and an opportunity. We must begin to view it in the way we view child care support and services. Carers must be entitled to more flexibility at work, although the Government have done much in that regard. Given the scale of demographic change—the over-85s are now the fastest-growing section of the population, and their number is set to double by 2030—and the growing proportion of “sandwich workers” who are attempting to juggle paid work with the demands of caring for both children and older relatives, the provision of flexibility is becoming an imperative. The Government must also think about how the market for low-level support services such as cleaning, shopping, gardening and befriending can be increased and, crucially, brought into the formal labour market.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, which is timely given some of the things that have been happening in old people’s homes. Does he agree that there is a case for asking employers to help people who have to care for a family member? Such people are often under stress, and if they have to give up their jobs, their standard of living will fall as well.

[Paul Burstow]

That is a key point, and one that I want to put to the Government very strongly. Carers can only be helped to remain in the work force and balance their working lives with their caring responsibilities if the right substitute care and flexibility are available, and if employers have the right attitudes in the first place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Burstow and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

5. What recent progress he has made on the evaluation of the thalidomide grant pilot scheme.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

The thalidomide grant is a three-year pilot, running from April 2010 until March 2013, to explore how the health needs of thalidomide survivors can best be met in the longer term and how such a scheme might be applied to other small groups of geographically dispersed patients with specialised needs. Officials have discussed the evaluation of the first year of the pilot with members of the Thalidomide Trust and its national advisory council and we await the evaluation of the second year.

[Mr Cunningham]

The thalidomide grant was introduced by my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State under the previous Labour Government and has been going on for many years. Can the Minister assure me that it will continue until a decision is taken on whether to carry on with the scheme beyond the pilot stage or to do something else?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Burstow and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

12. If he will introduce proposals to require a minimum ratio of nurses to patients in hospitals.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

Guidance on staff ratios and the proportion of registered and unregistered staff can play a useful part in supporting local decisions about setting safe and sustainable staffing levels. Both the Royal College of Nursing and the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement have produced such guidance. We have no plans to impose centrally determined ratios, as in our view that would undermine professional judgment.

[Mr Cunningham]

Is the Minister aware that the RCN says that nurses are overstretched, with too much reliance on cheaper, unqualified assistance? What impact does he think that will have on care for the elderly?

[Paul Burstow]

First, let me say that we greatly welcome the survey the RCN published last week, and the work it has done for many years to highlight ratios such as the ratio of nurses to beds. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that the ratio has improved under this Government. We are working with the RCN and others to identify the processes and paperwork within the NHS that occupy nurses’ time and take them away from the bedside, which is the priority.

Southern Cross Care Homes

Debate between Paul Burstow and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

What we have is a process that is working towards that solvent restructuring of the business to ensure that each home is able to be taken over by an operator or a group of operators so that good-quality care can continue to be provided for the people who live there. That is what this process involving the landlords, the lenders and Southern Cross is all about. What we know from the statement made by the company yesterday is that it has given an undertaking for the TUPE transfer of the staff. We also know that the company will be working over the next four months to ensure that smooth transition. As my statement said, the public authorities—the Care Quality Commission and the local authorities—are working with the company to ensure that that happens.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The Minister knows as well as I do that local authorities may have a legal obligation to intervene in this situation but they cannot do that without Government assistance with the resources. It is no good the Minister blaming a previous Labour Government or local authorities; he is passing the buck to local authorities. I thought that Pontius Pilate died 2,000 years ago, but we have just seen his resurrection.

[Paul Burstow]

What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that there is not a question of funding these homes, because they are not insolvent. The business is not going into administration—it is going through a restructuring—so there is no request for funds and there is no need for those funds in order for local authorities to be able to carry out their current legal duties.

Southern Cross Healthcare

Debate between Paul Burstow and Jim Cunningham

Thursday 16th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

The hon. Gentleman asks an important question about the impact on the quality of care if there are staff losses. When it became clear that the company was posting a figure of 3,000 redundancies, I instructed the CQC to undertake additional assessments to ascertain any likely effect and ensure that there is no impact on the quality of care.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

What is the Minister doing to beef up the CQC? As I understand it, there have been a number of redundancies there, and if he wants to maintain the quality of care he has to beef it up. Does he know that the Coventry Evening Telegraph recently conducted an investigation into 10 homes in Coventry, which were found greatly wanting in their standards, hygiene and medicine distribution?

[Paul Burstow]

On the hon. Gentleman’s question about the staffing of the CQC, I can confirm that last October I authorised an additional 75 inspectors’ posts to be filled by that organisation to strengthen it in the very way that he asks for.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Burstow and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already indicated in today’s exchanges in this House, we are committed to listening and reflecting during this pause, and to ensuring that we come back with substantive improvements to the Bill to deliver its central purpose of improving health care for the people of this country.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

5. How much his Department allocated to the provision of out-of-hours surgeries in the last 12 months for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Burstow and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burstow]

In July, I and the Secretary of State had a successful and long engagement with all the mental health charities, and we are continuing to have a dialogue with them.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

3. What estimate he has made of the number of redundancies which would result from the abolition of strategic health authorities and primary care trusts?