Social Care: Adults

Viscount Waverley Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. It is a really important issue that we discussed many times not only during the passage of the Health and Care Bill but subsequently. We have to make sure that everyone in the system is working together to make sure that a hospital knows who it is discharging to and that the carer who will receive or help that person has not only the support but the facilities and capabilities at home, or wherever that person is being discharged to, to work with that person. There are gaps in the system; it is not perfect in all places. We are working with local authorities and others to make sure we improve the system.

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

My Lords, would the Minister care to associate himself with today’s celebration of the arrival of the HMT “Empire Windrush” in 1948, whereby a statue has been unveiled at Waterloo station to remember that it was Caribbean citizens who, frankly, came to the rescue of the National Health Service? Are there lessons to be learned that the Minister might wish to apply to today’s situation?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am so keen to answer that question because of my own Caribbean background. In fact, my father was part of that Windrush generation. He travelled from Guyana to Trinidad in 1952, and then from Trinidad to the United Kingdom, where he worked first on the railways and then as a bus driver. His brother worked in a post office and his sister was a nurse. That shows the vital contribution that people from the Caribbean made to this country post war.