Winterbourne View

Viscount Tenby Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Tenby]

My Lords—

[Baroness Northover]

I think it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats and then maybe the Cross-Benchers after that.

[Earl Howe]

I agree with my noble friend. Where supervision is required, it is the job of the manager to ensure that it takes place, and that the supervision, staff ratios and so on are appropriate. We come back to the question of the responsibility placed on the shoulders of managers and proprietors of care homes. As the Statement made clear, this is very much a responsibility of providers, who need to be held to account for the quality of care that they provide.

[Viscount Tenby]

My Lords, I declare an interest both as a trustee of an organisation dealing with women with learning disabilities and also as a father of someone in that category. Although everyone can applaud the move to independent living within the community—nothing could be better—this has considerable financial implications, at a time of great financial stringency and rationing within the NHS. Can the noble Lord assure me that sufficient funds will be found and made available for this most important development?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the commissioning of this type of care will, in the future, be the joint responsibility of clinical commissioning groups and local authorities. We are encouraging as much close co-operation as possible at a local level. The noble Viscount will know that across-government funding is tight. However, we as a Government took the decision to protect the health budget, which is in fact rising in real terms every year of this Parliament. That does not reduce the pressure placed on the budget, because historically the pressures on the health budget have been higher than the rate of inflation; nevertheless, in protecting the health budget, we are also supporting local authorities to the tune of more than £7 billion over the spending review period to ensure that their social care services are not seriously depleted or damaged. It would be idle of me to say that there is no problem, but the funding available should be enough to support these services over the medium term.