Integration White Paper

Lord Mawson Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The only legislation I am aware of is the Health and Care Bill; this White Paper complements that, just as the adult social White Paper does. This is not legislation.

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the White Paper and the direction of travel. I thank the Minister and his colleagues for being willing to listen to me and colleagues in the NHS who are involved in actual practical pieces of innovation in this space. It is good to see real examples of the implications for real people in this White Paper. There is also lots of focus on practical and detailed changes—for example, streamlining training and qualifications and shared outcomes. I wonder whether sufficient attention is paid to the social determinants of health and getting upstream with regard to prevention. Is there still too much assumption that the state is doing all the work? The private and voluntary sectors are the major delivers of care. Does the model of partnership proposed fully reflect this? The Minister might like to reflect on that.

Finally, as always, the devil is in the detail and will be all about implementation. One of the ways of achieving this focus is, as I have said before, through establishing innovation platforms that embody the ideas of not only the White Paper but the Health and Care Bill, levelling up and many other current initiatives. Innovation platforms can start to bring together some of these initiatives. It is our experience on the ground that a lot of the public sector systems and processes are not in place and are not fit for purpose. There needs to be innovation in this space. The problem could be an opportunity if we start to join some of this up. How do the Government intend to join up these various initiatives?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

In many ways, the answer is not what the Government intend to do but what happens at the place-based level. As the noble Lord has reminded me on a number of occasions, some of the projects that he has been involved in and other social enterprises have been really good at bringing people together. Sometimes it has been led by local councils; sometimes it has been led by social enterprises; sometimes it has been led by networks. I completely understand the premise of the question and agree that it has to be a partnership. It is not just a state, but social enterprises, co-operatives, local movements and local civil society all working together with common aims. Go to any part of this country and you will see a number of these people working together. We have to make sure that there is no overlapping or duplication. This is the real aim of what we are trying to get, making sure that people talk about health and social care but well-being as well.