Reform of Social Care

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am afraid that I do not accept the hon. Lady’s premise. I am not going to revisit the past, but the truth is that, since I became directly involved, I initiated cross-party discussions before the election on the reform of social care, and I did not leave those discussions. It was her former Prime Minister who effectively broke them down.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I think everyone knows where we want to get to on palliative care. We want to provide those people who want it with a much better opportunity to die at home or to die in a hospice while being properly cared for and supported. How does my right hon. Friend see us getting from here to there? What process will be involved, and who is going to drive that process to improve palliative care?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. This is very much about ensuring that, at the same time as engaging on the palliative care report, we build pilots that will enable us to see how the proposals would work in a number of places across the country. I know that some areas of the country are ready and willing to do that. The essence of what we are doing is to be increasingly clear about what quality services for those at the end of their lives look like, and to be sure that we can integrate those services by developing a system of per-patient funding. That would enable the providers to work together within the funding framework, without the current constraints and demarcations, and without the silo system that currently divides palliative care and end-of-life care services in a way that makes the system immensely confusing and difficult for people at the end of their lives. This is a real opportunity that has been fashioned by Tom Hughes-Hallett and Alan Craft’s report.