Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Diagnosing fibromyalgia can be difficult because there is no specific diagnostic test and symptoms can vary. A range of support exists to help GPs, including an e-learning course developed by the Royal College of General Practitioners and Versus Arthritis, and a medical guide on diagnosis and treatment developed by Fibromyalgia Action UK.
Toby Perkins
I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. I just hot-footed it here from Westminster Hall, where an excellent debate on fibromyalgia took place this morning. We heard a huge amount of evidence about people who suffer with fibromyalgia having waited more than a year to be diagnosed and having received treatments irrelevant to their condition. Clearly, diagnosis is not working at the moment. What more can the Minister tell us about investment in research to improve diagnosis and to try to get better outcomes for fibromyalgia sufferers?
Caroline Dinenage
I feel that my colleague the Secretary of State has set the bar for compliments to Members this morning. On that basis, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his Westminster Hall debate, which raised a key issue. The Department’s National Institute for Health Research welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including fibromyalgia. Its support for that research over the past five years includes £1.8 million funding for research projects and £0.6 million funding for clinical trials through the clinical research network.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
Will the Minister endorse the excellent work by Sue Worrall and her team at Walsall Fibro and ME Link, whose monthly meetings seek to tackle the isolation frequently associated with those conditions?
Caroline Dinenage
I warmly welcome the organisation that my hon. Friend mentioned. There are some outstanding voluntary community-led organisations up and down the country that provide invaluable support for people who suffer from this condition. We know that symptoms can vary and that it can be incredibly distressing, so that support is enormously valuable.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The effectiveness of primary care in this and many other areas is undermined for the most vulnerable and poorest communities by this Government’s insistence on putting out GP contracts for competitive tender, even when there is no competition to serve poor communities. The Watson review of GP partnerships was published today. Will the Minister commit to reviewing the requirement for competitive tender for GP partnerships?
Caroline Dinenage
We do of course support the recommendations that were part of that review. We have announced massive investment in primary and community services and spend on those services will grow as the NHS budget grows.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Autism and learning disabilities are clinical priorities in the NHS long-term plan. We are committed to improving the quality of care provided to people with a learning disability or autism and to addressing the persistent health inequalities they face.
Mike Wood
I thank the Minister for her response. The commitment to reducing diagnosis waiting times for children and young people is welcome, but what are the Government doing in this 10th anniversary year of the Autism Act 2009 to tackle diagnosis waiting times for all people?
Caroline Dinenage
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his active involvement in the all-party parliamentary groups on learning disability and on autism. Over the next three years, we will be testing and implementing the most effective ways to reduce waiting times for specialist services. We are developing guidance to support commissioners to develop the necessary services to support all autistic people, and we have launched a review of our autism strategy.
Alex Burghart
As a former governor of a school for children with autism, I thank the Minister for her response. It is well known that people with ASD suffer premature morbidity due to worse rates of heart disease, cancer and death through epilepsy. What is the Minister doing to ensure that fewer people with autism die early?
Caroline Dinenage
These are key elements of the NHS long-term plan, and we will shortly start consulting on mandatory learning disability and autism training for health and social care staff. We will work to improve uptake of the existing annual health checks for people with learning disabilities and will pilot the introduction of specific health checks for autistic people.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister knows of my interest in access to healthcare as chair of the Westminster Commission on Autism. She will also know that a real barrier is having enough people with the skills not only to identify autism, but to support families dealing with it.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman is right, and I pay tribute to his hard work in this area. Training is so important, and we want to ensure that all staff, whether clinical, medical or perhaps just on reception, have the necessary training to be able to help to support people with learning disabilities or autism.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
What are the Government going to do about people who have suffered acquired brain injury? One in four major trauma centres have no neurorehabilitation consultant, meaning that such people all too often fall between the cracks and do not get proper support. Will the Government change that?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman chairs the all-party group on acquired brain injury, and we are working on the recommendations of his report. This is such an important issue, and we want to make sure that nobody falls through the gaps.
Several hon. Members rose—
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
This Government’s cuts to council budgets have meant that 100,000 fewer people received publicly funded social care over the past three years, and 90 people a day died while waiting for social care last year. What does the Secretary of State think it says to their families that the social care Green Paper and the meaningful funding settlement have been delayed again?
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
The hon. Lady knows that we have given councils access to nearly £10 billion over a three-year period to address this very issue, but she is right to highlight the issues at the heart of social care. We will be publishing the Green Paper very shortly.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Children’s hospices provide vital support for children with life-limiting conditions and their families at the most difficult of times. I welcome the £25 million of extra investment in these services, but what more can be done to support children’s hospices across the UK?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the incredible work of children’s hospices across the country. Up until now, there has been a disparity between their funding and that of their adult counterparts, which is why I was delighted when, as part of the NHS long-term plan, we announced plans to increase funding for children’s hospices by as much as £25 million a year over the next five years. We can always do more, however, and we are always open to suggestions.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)
Each month I hold my memory cafés for those suffering with memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer’s, and their carers, families and friends. What support are the Government providing for those suffering with such memory loss conditions?
Caroline Dinenage
We remain absolutely committed to delivering the challenge under dementia 2020 and to making England the best country in the world for dementia care by 2020. As part of that, we are more than happy to do everything we can to support steps such as the memory cafés of which my hon. Friend speaks, which are such a valuable local community resource.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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The Chair
Welcome, everyone, to the first meeting of the Committee. Can we start by making sure that our phones and iPads are on silent? We will first consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication. I hope we can take those two things without too much debate. I call the Minister to move the programme motion, which was agreed by the Programming Sub-Committee yesterday.
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. The Bill amends the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and reforms deprivation of liberty safeguards, which, if the Committee will forgive me, I will refer to as DoLS. DoLS came into force in 2009 to provide protections for vulnerable people who require care and treatment but do not have the capacity to consent. However, due to the cumbersome and inefficient nature of the current DoLS system, many people are not receiving those vital protections. Hon. Members across the House heard on Second Reading that there is currently a shocking backlog—
The Chair
Order. All you need to do at this stage is move the programme motion.
Ordered,
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Tuesday 15 January) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 15 January;
(b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 17 January;
(c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 22 January;
(d) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 24 January;
(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clause 1; Schedule 1; Clauses 2 to 4; Schedule 2; Clause 5; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(3) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Thursday 24 January.—(Caroline Dinenage.)
The Chair
Copies of the written evidence received will be made available in the Committee Room.
We now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection list for today’s sitting, which is available in the room, shows how the selected amendments have been grouped for debate. Amendments grouped together are generally on the same or similar issues. Decisions on amendments take place not in the order the amendments are debated, but in the order they appear on the amendment paper. The selection and grouping list shows the order of debate; decisions on each amendment will be taken when we come to the part of the Bill the amendment affects. I will use my discretion to decide whether to allow a separate stand part debate on individual clauses and schedules following the debates on the relevant amendments.
Clause 1
Deprivation of liberty: authorisation of arrangements enabling care and treatment
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Caroline Dinenage
As I said, due to the cumbersome and inefficient nature of the current DoLS system, many people are not receiving the vital protections they need. Members across the House heard on Second Reading that there is a backlog of 125,000 people waiting to have their safeguards considered. That is 125,000 people who are not receiving the protections they are entitled to, as well as families who do not have peace of mind and carers who do not have legal cover. Worse still, more than 48,000 of those people have been waiting more than a year for an authorisation to be considered. I hope hon. Members agree that that simply cannot be allowed to continue.
The Government tasked the Law Commission with reviewing DoLS and, after more than three years of extensive engagement, it concluded that the system needed to be replaced as a matter of pressing urgency. The Bill concentrates on the Law Commission recommendations that focus on the delivery model. In certain regards, such as making consultation on the individual’s wishes and feelings an explicit feature of the Bill, we go further than the Law Commission recommended.
The Bill has passed through the other place. We worked constructively with the Lords to make important changes, including by ensuring there is no conflict of interest in the role care home managers play in the new system and by removing references to “unsound mind”, which is outdated and stigmatising. We hope to continue working constructively as the Bill passes through the Commons. Indeed, I have already met hon. Members from across the House, as well as key sector stakeholders, to ensure that we listen and respond to their concerns. I know the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South cares as much as I do about getting this right.
Clause 1 inserts schedule AA1 into the Mental Capacity Act. This replaces DoLS with a new administrative scheme for authorising deprivation of liberty, known as liberty protection safeguards.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. I look forward to the hours of important debate we have ahead of us on the Bill. Let us hope the temperature in the room balances out somewhat over the next few hours, because we are suffering a little bit at the moment.
I want to say clearly that the Opposition are committed to improving the Bill, despite the many reservations we have about not only its contents, but the way it has been developed so far. Should the Government push ahead with the Bill, our job is to ensure that it is the best it can be. We have tabled nearly 30 amendments, which are the minimum reforms needed to ensure that the Bill is fit for purpose.
I am sure that the Government want to produce a Bill that works. No Minister or Department wants to introduce a law that creates complicated case law and necessitates further legislation in the near future. We will work with the Government over the next few weeks to improve the Bill in a spirit of co-operation. If we can do that, we might just have a serviceable Bill at the end of this process.
We will not oppose clause 1 stand part. Indeed, clause 1 is the only part of the Bill that nobody is trying to amend.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1
Schedule to be inserted as Schedule AA1 to the Mental Capacity Act 2005
Caroline Dinenage
I beg to move amendment 2, in schedule 1, page 5, line 19, leave out
“if a person objects to arrangements”
and insert “in certain cases”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 9.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 38, in schedule 1, page 16, line 4, after “if” insert
“the cared-for person is aged 16 or 17 and in other cases if”.
This amendment makes provision for an AMCP to be involved in all cases involving 16 and 17 year olds.
Government amendments 8 and 9.
Amendment 37, in schedule 1, page 16, line 12, at end insert—
“(c) the arrangements include the use of physical restraint, or
(d) the arrangements include the use of sedating medication, or
(e) a person interested in the cared-for person’s welfare has objected to the arrangements, or
(f) the cared-for person owns or has the right to occupy a different property to the property in respect of which the arrangements apply, or
(g) the cared-for person is receiving covert medication, or
(h) the cared-for person is restricted from having contact with named persons, or
(i) the cared-for person is being detained in a mental health establishment for the purposes of treatment of a mental disorder, or
(j) there is a less restrictive option for the cared-for person’s care or residence available, or
(k) the cared-for person, or a person interested in the cared-for person’s welfare, requests the review be by an Approved Mental Capacity Professional.”
This amendment provides for access to an Approved Mental Capacity Professional in specific circumstances.
Amendment 39, in schedule 1, page 16, line 12, at end insert—
“(c) the arrangements provide for the cared-for person to receive care or treatment, and it is reasonable to believe that the cared-for person does not wish to receive the specific kinds of care or treatment which the arrangements provide for, or
(d) it is reasonable to believe that the cared-for person does not wish to receive care or treatment overall.”
This amendment broadens the criteria of objection in the Bill, so that it applies to objections to the kinds of proposed care or treatment to be given, or to an overall objection to care or treatment.
Government amendment 10.
Caroline Dinenage
With your leave, Mr Austin, I will address the amendments in my name before I speak to the Opposition’s amendments. This group of amendments relates to pre-authorisation reviews, which are conducted by an approved mental capacity professional, or AMCP. The AMCP provides an additional level of scrutiny for cases that need it, such as where somebody has raised an objection. Amendment 9 requires an AMCP to conduct the pre-authorisation review should arrangements mean that the cared-for person receives care or treatment mainly in an independent hospital. It also clarifies that cases can be referred to an AMCP by the responsible body, providing that the AMCP accepts the referral. The other amendments in the group are consequential on this.
I am sure that hon. Members of different parties have been as distraught and dismayed as I have at the widespread reporting of cases of inappropriate restrictive practices, such as the prolonged use of seclusion. They will recognise that the scrutiny of cases in independent hospitals must be absolutely robust. Stakeholders are right to raise their concerns about this, as many did in the debate on the Bill in the other place. The Government have acted to address those concerns by requiring authorisations in independent hospitals to be considered by an AMCP, regardless of whether an individual objects to their arrangements. We have added a further level of security to the process. The AMCP will meet the person, complete any relevant consultations, and review assessments to decide whether the authorisation conditions are met.
Amendment 9 also clarifies that the AMCP can conduct pre-authorisation reviews in any case, not just where an individual objects. The Government’s view has always been that certain cases might benefit from scrutiny by an AMCP due purely to their complexity or nature. The amendment will apply to all cases, not just cases where the independent hospital is the responsible body. The statutory code of practice will be used to explain in detail how these powers should be exercised. For example, authorisations that relate to people with an acquired brain injury might benefit from consideration by an AMCP, as the nature of their illness means that it can often be difficult to establish whether they have capacity, and their capacity might fluctuate. AMCPs will also play a key role should particularly restrictive arrangements be proposed.
The code of practice is a statutory document that will be approved by both Houses and will form the basis of the responsible body’s decision to refer cases to an AMCP, which could extend to cases in which physical restraint is used. The approved mental capacity professional will then decide whether to accept the referral, in line with the code of practice. It is important that AMCPs are focused on cases that need additional scrutiny, so that the system can be targeted and can deliver protection to all those who need it more quickly. That is why AMCPs have a role in making a judgment about whether to accept referrals. The amendments strengthen the safeguards in the Bill, and I hope the Committee will support them.
Let me turn to the amendments tabled by the Opposition. I thank hon. Members for initiating this important discussion about objections and access to AMCPs. Amendment 37 would provide for access to AMCPs in specific circumstances. The Government absolutely agree that AMCPs should review authorisations where appropriate, but the issue is that, by putting too much detail in the Bill, we can sometimes be caught out by what is left out. The Bill already requires that an AMCP completes the pre-authorisation review if it is reasonable to believe that the cared-for person does not want to reside in, or receive care or treatment at, a certain place. The objection can be raised by anyone with an interest in the cared-for person’s welfare. The Bill already requires that arrangements are necessary, proportionate and the least restrictive possible. That is to be considered as part of the pre-authorisation review.
The Government amendment previously discussed requires that an AMCP reviews every authorisation from an independent hospital, even if there is not an objection. That is an example of our commitment to protecting the most vulnerable.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I am interested in the expression that the Minister used a moment ago—“where appropriate”. There is no clear definition anywhere in this material of who will determine what “where appropriate” means, and who will be involved in the decision making. I would welcome an explanation of what the Minister means by that. I would much rather see everybody covered by this provision.
Caroline Dinenage
Everybody is entitled to an AMCP if they are in an independent hospital. That is on the face of the Bill in terms of decision making, case studies and how we make sure people have the training and information to implement the Bill in the way it is intended. Let us not forget that we started with a well-intended Bill with DoLS, but because of the way it was worded and subsequent decisions by judges, we have now got a one-size-fits-all Bill. That is why we have a statutory code of practice, which runs alongside the Bill. It is a legal document and will be approved by both Houses. It will be put together with stakeholders and will set out very clearly the guidelines that dictate how and when action should be taken. It will include case studies and will be compiled very closely with stakeholders, who are on the frontline and deal with individuals.
Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)
I wonder whether the Minister can tell us what it is about independent hospitals that warrants an AMCP assessment, given that independent care homes do not warrant one?
Caroline Dinenage
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that interesting question. His medical background makes him a very valuable member of this Committee—as is everybody else, of course. There have been a lot of high-profile cases involving independent hospitals recently, and we have to pay attention of them. We are talking about a very tiny cohort of vulnerable people here—slightly less than 1%—but they are very important, given that they are extremely vulnerable. Given the nature of the concerns that have been raised about independent hospitals, we felt, and the Lords agreed, that it is important to ensure that additional protection is there from the outset, whether or not the person objects to their care.
Caroline Dinenage
I will just get to the end of my sentence.
The Government amendment already clarifies that AMCPs can review authorisations in other relevant cases—for example, if circumstances are complex or if particularly restrictive practices are used.
Steve McCabe
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; I did not want to interrupt her flow. I want to clarify the answer she gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South a second ago. How many people reside in independent homes, as opposed to independent hospitals? I would have thought that the greater proportion are in independent homes, which is all the more reason why we should have concern about them.
Caroline Dinenage
With deprivation of liberty safeguards or liberty protection safeguards, roughly 80% are in care homes, 20% are in hospitals and—I know this will add up to over 100%, but it is there or thereabouts in each case—about 1% are in independent hospitals. We have to avoid recreating the painfully inadequate DoLS system we have at the moment. Where something is straightforward and simple, we do not want to take the power and decision making out of the hands of families, loved ones and those trusted to help people in decisions about their care.
We have put in this clause about independent hospitals because Members from both sides of both Houses have had particular concerns. I know that the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South shares these concerns with me. That is why we felt that the clause was particularly important.
We know that situations can be complex and incredibly far-ranging, which is why we intend to use this code of practice to capture the full scope of circumstances to which it may apply. We will set out in detail the circumstances that may trigger a review by an AMCP. I am keen to take input from all Members from across the House on this document.
Amendment 38 relates to the involvement of approved mental capacity professionals in arrangements for 16 and 17-year-olds. We understand that many 16 and 17-year-olds would benefit from the additional scrutiny of an AMCP. This is why the Government amendment clarifies that relevant cases should be referred to an AMCP.
Alex Cunningham
Again, the Minister uses words I am uncomfortable with—the word “relevant”. Who determines what is relevant in the case of an individual young person?
Caroline Dinenage
In each case, these are professional social workers who have the required skills and training to make this kind of decision. We do not want to recreate the current system, which very much leaves families and loved ones excluded from the whole process. We want to make sure that their consideration is taken into account at the same time, but we also want to rely on the judgment of professionals, who are incredibly skilled and well trained and who will have the additional workforce training to ensure that they are able to carry out this function successfully.
Amendment 39 broadens the criteria for objections within liberty protection safeguards. The Bill currently provides that the referral must be made to the AMCP if there is a reasonable belief that the person objects to the arrangements to reside in or receive treatment at a specified place. The amendment would expand this to care and treatment overall. I agree that it is important to take into account a person’s wishes and feelings in relation to their care and treatment. It is really important to remember that the provision of care or treatment is already governed by section 4 of the Mental Capacity Act. This amendment to the Act does not override some of the existing parts of the Bill, which are very valuable. In these situations, a best interest decision would need to be made, having regard to ascertainable wishes and feelings, as set out in the Act.
If a person objects, or has objected in the past, to the care or treatment, this must be taken into account within best interest decisions. In some cases a best interest decision must be referred to a court if the person or their family objects. Nothing in the Bill changes this. The statutory code of practice will set out how liberty protection safeguards work within the wider framework of the Mental Capacity Act.
Barbara Keeley
I will come to this in more detail later, but constantly referring to a code of practice we have not seen is not helping us here. We are trying to make sure that the Bill is fit for purpose.
Caroline Dinenage
I completely understand the hon. Lady’s feelings on this. She will know, because we met and discussed this, that I am very keen that the code of practice is put together by taking on board the advice and guidance of all stakeholders and Members from across the House. This work has already started. We have a first meeting in a couple of weeks, where we will get all the stakeholders together to flesh this out.
This is a statutory document that will bear weight in a court of law. There has already been a lot of commitment in both Houses to what the code of practice will include, so we would like to provide Members during the Committee with a document that will set out exactly the sort of things that we are already committed to.
Barbara Keeley
Briefly, if the Minister had done what I asked her to do on Second Reading, and what 40 organisations asked her to do, and paused the Bill, she would have had time to develop the code of practice before we got to this point. We would have the Bill and the code of practice here, and we could check them. We do not have them. That is why we will have a problem.
Caroline Dinenage
I understand where the hon. Lady is coming from. The code of practice will be a living document. It will go alongside the Bill and have case studies. It has to be put together in a very co-operative and collaborative way. It will have to come before both Houses to be signed off before it can be published and released, so there will be plenty of opportunity for Members to get involved in drawing it up. I have committed to providing a list of what we have already agreed will be part of it. Members will get a chance to vote on it before it is published, and it will need the approval of both Houses because it is a statutory document.
Barbara Keeley
I agree with my hon. Friend that that argument makes the case for us. In amendment 37, we suggest that the Government adopt in the Bill the process for assessing risk that social services departments up and down the country currently use on the DoLS application backlog. That is what they are doing and that is why that important amendment should be taken forward.
In response to the points made about amendment 39, it broadens out the terms of objection that would trigger an AMCP review. As I showed with examples, it is not always about the location. Just being able to raise objections about location is not enough. People often object to forms of treatment. There are some very difficult cases, such as eating disorders. There are often difficulties around the treatment.
I gave the example of an older person receiving palliative care who did not want dialysis. Medical people might find it hard, but there are cases where somebody does not want a treatment but wants the course of their disease to progress. In the cases I have mentioned, people were forced into situations that they did not want and where they did not have a basis to object. I believe that there is a case to broaden the grounds of objection to include not just location but the other points we have put forward in the amendment.
I just wanted to finalise those points and pull together what my colleagues have said. We will push our amendments to the vote at the appropriate time.
Caroline Dinenage
A number of valid points have been raised by hon. Members and I will cover some in more detail when we reach the relevant part of the Bill. I want to get through as many as I can now that relate to this matter.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak may have done it with a cheeky smile, but he said that I am flirting and dismissive in the way I address amendments to the Bill. Can I reassure him from the outset that I have not been dismissive of any of the amendments? I take the Bill incredibly seriously; I am not flirting with it. I look at every single amendment to see whether it would add to the Bill. That is why we amended the Bill so much in the House of Lords. I have committed to that.
I want to talk briefly about 16 and 17-year-olds. The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South is absolutely right that we have to be incredibly careful. The current system just does not work for 16 and 17-year-olds and the only recourse is the Court of Protection. We see a swathe of 16 and 17-year-olds who have no protection and no form of DoLS. That is simply not good enough.
Before making this change, we gave careful thought to how the inclusion of 16 and 17-year-olds would interact with other legislation, including the Children Act 1989. We are comfortable that it would work alongside existing legislation. We also looked at the interface with the Mental Health Act and the Mental Capacity Act. Sir Simon Wessely, who is conducting the review of the Mental Health Act, suggests that that is the way it should go.
We have given careful thought to how parents are involved when their child is subject to liberty protection safeguards. Where appropriate, they will be consulted. We have to say “where appropriate” because of the very small number of safeguarding issues that could arise. That is the problem with having absolutes in the Bill. We do not want to recreate what we have at moment—a system that tries to catch all and to be one size fits all, but that ends up helping nobody. We want a targeted system focused on resources where they are needed most. That is why we have not taken a blanket approach to AMCPs.
The hon. Member for Stockton North suggested that the problem is something to do with resourcing, but it is not—it is about focusing resources where they are most needed. In a case where a young person agrees to their care, their parents are happy with it and all professionals agree it is in their best interests, what does an AMCP add? The case would still be reviewed by someone not involved in their care, through the pre-authorisation process. Every single application under the liberty protection safeguards will be carefully reviewed by someone not involved in their care or treatment.
Barbara Keeley
The Minister asks what an AMCP review adds; it adds independence at a point where family members are banned from contact, where 16 and 17-year-olds are involved. This is new legislation and a new process. In amendment 37, we suggest that there is a need for additional safeguards; the safeguards we suggest are the ones currently used by social services departments up and down the country.
Caroline Dinenage
With the greatest respect, I do not think the hon. Lady listened 100% to what I said. I said that in a case where the young person agrees to their care, their parents are happy with their care and all professionals agree that it is in their best interests, what does an AMCP add when there is already pre-authorisation scrutiny? It is not to do with resources but with wanting a targeted system that focuses resources where they are most needed, protecting vulnerable people in the very best way we can. We understand that there are particular concerns about the use of restrictive practices on young people with learning disabilities or autism. That is why we have tabled an amendment to clarify that responsible bodies can refer cases other than those with objections to an AMCP. In many cases, we would expect that to happen.
The code of practice keeps being referred to as something peripheral, but it is key. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak talked about not having the ability to scrutinise it. There is not only the ability to scrutinise the code of practice; hon. Members can contribute to it. That is why it is very important that it is laid out in the way my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis said. That is exactly the place where we lay out the case studies, individual concerns and the very complex cases that need to be definitively scooped up by this Bill. Trying to do a catch-all in the Bill would not provide sufficient protection for the people we all care so desperately about.
Alex Cunningham
I want to come back to resources. The Minister is right that we need to target resources where they are most needed, but the fact remains that there are insufficient resources in the system. My local authority has lost 55% of its budget since 2010. It still makes the political decision that I mentioned earlier to try to pull money from other areas to bolster the work that is needed in this area. The Government must commit to putting more resources in. It should not be left to local authorities to let other services suffer to subsidise this type of activity. The Minister needs to take that away and think seriously about resourcing.
Caroline Dinenage
I completely understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, but as he says, that is a political decision taken by local authorities up and down the country. He spoke with great knowledge about the fact that his local authority has decided to clear its backlog. Others do not have that capacity. We know that some local authorities are under a lot of pressure.
Caroline Dinenage
If the hon. Gentleman lets me get to the end of my point, I will give way to him. The situation is this: if every local authority across the country was to completely clear its backlog, we are looking at an additional cost of about £2 billion. So much of that is unnecessary.
The hon. Member for Nottingham North spoke about his experience of this issue, and I have personal experience too. My uncle, whom we sadly lost in September, was living with dementia and had health problems that kept causing him to end up in hospital. In his case, the lovely care home he was in gave him great care and support. According to him, it was where he was very happy, and according to us, his family, it was the best place for him. All the doctors’ reports said that that was where he should be, but he kept having to go into hospital because he had fits and kept collapsing. Every time he went into hospital—probably three or four times a year—the hospital had to apply for another DoLS. That meant that, often, by the time he got back to the original care home, the DoLS from the place he went to second had not been applied. How can the hon. Member for Stockton North tell me that that is a viable use of Government and local authority resources? It is not. It is a terrible waste of money, and it does not protect the people who are most vulnerable.
Alex Cunningham
That can be corrected in the system. Some would say that £2 billion is a small price to pay to ensure that everything in our system is legal—there are tens of thousands of cases where people are being held illegally. We need to do something about resourcing and looking at that backlog. I take the point that we do not want repetition, and the legislation needs to knock out the repetition that the Minister describes, but the bottom line remains that local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and others are extremely stretched as far as resources are concerned, and we want to put even more responsibilities on some of them through this legislation, albeit maybe doing things a bit more efficiently.
Caroline Dinenage
I disagree. We are not putting more responsibilities on to local authorities—we are just targeting them better. The hon. Gentleman says £2 billion would be a small price to pay. That would be £2 billion wasted on a system that all the stakeholders across the board say is not fit for purpose, whatever their feelings about the Bill at the moment. The hon. Gentleman worked in his local authority, and he will know that there is desperate waste in the system. We are trying to get to the bottom of that waste here; we are trying to make sure that the money is much better spent, supporting the vulnerable.
Barbara Keeley
It is important that we do not tar all local authorities with the same brush. The overall situation is as the Minister presents it, but my hon. Friends are right to highlight that some local authorities—Stockton is one—have decided, in the current situation of cuts, to dedicate resources, and they have a very low backlog. In my own area of Salford, fewer than 200 applications were outstanding at the end of last year. In the London Borough of Bexley, the backlog is as low as 20 cases, and it had 1,385 applications last year. Some of our larger authorities—Salford, Bexley and Stockton—have decided to dedicate resources to this area, to effectively take resources away from other areas of their operation and to make this area a priority.
I met with DoLS leads in stakeholder meetings for the Bill, and they have a feeling that we are somehow denigrating them and running them down. A brilliant job is being done in places such as Salford and Bexley, and certainly Stockton. I do not want to send out a message from here that a resource problem that came up on this process because of the Cheshire West decision should be used to denigrate a process that can work and is working in some of our larger authorities. I hope the Minister will agree.
Caroline Dinenage
I agree very much with that sentiment. We know that local authorities up and down the country are doing sterling work processing applications, but we also know that there is huge geographical disparity, and there are vulnerable people who are not being looked after, with 125,000 cases in the backlog—48,000 of those for more than a year. As with the case of my uncle, many of those cases could already be moot. He had been in and out of hospital and was already back in his care home, and two DoLS applications were still sitting waiting on the backburner that would now never need to be done and were just adding to the bureaucracy, when there are other valid and vulnerable cases waiting to be addressed.
I will move on to a few other issues that were raised. The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South raised objections in terms of medication rather than location. There must be a best interests meeting, and sometimes a court hearing, on things such as covert treatment. That is already part of the Mental Capacity Act. We want objections to be considered as broadly as possible. They can be raised by those with an interest in welfare, a family or an independent mental capacity advocate. Streamlined systems mean that objections can be considered more quickly and can be acted on sooner.
The hon. Lady also spoke knowledgeably and passionately about the case of Steven Neary, who was held for a year despite parental objections. Under the provisions in the Bill, Steven’s parents would have been able to raise an objection on his behalf. Independent AMCPs would meet Steven and his parents. They could determine that conditions are not met and could agree arrangements so that these things would not be authorised. That type of provision would need to be reconsidered if they continued to deprive him of his liberty; it would be a breach of statutory duty but also of article 5 of the European convention on human rights.
Barbara Keeley
The Minister is making an assertion there, but to my view, the crux of the Steven Neary case was that the social worker involved listened to the care home staff and not to Steven Neary’s parents. She dismissed his parents’ objections entirely. We have talked about that substantially, and it is an important aspect. His parents’ objections were ignored, and it is quite clear from the court case that the social worker just listened to the care home managers. The Bill, as we will discuss later, just brings that to the fore. We will cover that later, but the Minister should not jump over that point in talking about that specific case.
Caroline Dinenage
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for clarifying that point, but I feel strongly that having an independent responsible body overseeing how these things are processed will make matters clearer.
Barbara Keeley
It is not clear what the Minister is saying there. In the specific case of Steven Neary, which independent responsible body would have done that? The local authority is the responsible body. This was a case of a care home and a young man held against his wishes and his parents’ wishes. Which independent responsible body is the Minister talking about? That did not work in the Steven Neary case. The parents were ignored.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady makes a strong point, but that underlines the issues we have with DoLS at the moment: despite a backlog of 125,000 and a cost ticket of £2 billion, the system is not working. That is why we need to change it.
I will talk briefly about the ADASS—Association of Directors of Adult Social Services—tool. ADASS worked carefully to develop it in response to increased numbers of cases, which were overwhelming some local authorities. That included recognising issues such as clear objections that are raised and providing help with prioritising important cases, but it still leaves that 125,000 backlog, and that is unacceptable. There are various other issues about how we will resource it, but we will discuss those nearer the time.
In conclusion, AMCPs can consider any relevant case —for example, a particularly restrictive practice that is being used, or people with mental disorders. In this case, an AMCP can complete the pre-authorisation review. We will set out the detail, the case studies and clear guidance when we have the statutory code of practice. Every authorisation must be reviewed by somebody who does not deliver the day-to-day care or treatment, and the pre-authorisation reviewer must be satisfied that the authorisation is valid before approving it.
AMCPs should have the opportunity in certain cases to allow a targeted approach that will deliver a more efficient system and to allow people the better protections they need more quickly. I appreciate 100% the hon. Lady’s concerns about the conflict of interest in independent hospitals. We will discuss that at greater length, but she knows I share her concerns about how individuals in those settings can best be protected.
Amendment 2 agreed to.
Barbara Keeley
I beg to move amendment 19, in schedule 1, page 8, line 17, at end insert—
“(aa) if the arrangements are for the cared-for person to be accommodated in an independent hospital for the purpose of assessment or treatment for mental disorder, and that care is commissioned by a clinical commissioning group or Local Health Board, it is the clinical commissioning group or Local Health Board, that is the responsible body;”
This amendment would mean that, where a person is accommodated in an independent hospital for the assessment or treatment of a mental disorder, and their care is commissioned by a CCG or Local Health Board, then the responsible body will be the CCG or Local Health Board.
Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Welcome back, everyone. I am sorry about the heat. Can we make sure our phones are turned off? The selection list for the sitting is available in the room. We have grouped amendments on similar issues together for debate, regardless of where they appear in the Bill. As I said this morning, decisions on amendments do not take place in the order in which they are debated, but in the order in which they appear on the amendment paper, which lists amendments according to which part of the Bill they affect.
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a great pleasure to respond on the amendment, after our short break, in this delightfully warm and cosy room. I will start by addressing some of the issues raised by hon. Members.
The Opposition spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South, spoke powerfully about concerns to do with independent hospitals and, more particularly, about the case of Bethany. We are absolutely clear that it is completely unacceptable to be subject to prolonged seclusion in the way that the hon. Lady mentioned. We have commissioned an independent review under the NHS serious incident review framework. That does not necessarily have to do with the Bill, but I felt it important to set that out for clarity. In addition, the Secretary of State commissioned a section 48 Care Quality Commission review of restrictive practices, including seclusion and long-term segregation, to understand the extent to which these things happen. NHS England is working very urgently to support Bethany into a community placement. Her father and Mencap have issued a pre-action protocol to challenge the current arrangements.
More broadly, with regard to the Transforming Care agenda, detentions of people with learning disabilities and/or autism in mental health hospitals are completely inappropriate and must end. We will achieve a 35% reduction in that at the earliest opportunity.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Can the Minister say why the NHS long-term plan appears to go backwards on that? It is going from 25 people with a learning disability or autism in an in-patient unit per million adults to 30. That does not sound like progress; that sounds like removing a priority.
Caroline Dinenage
I understand why the hon. Lady says that, but looking at it in context, we committed to reducing the numbers by between 35% and 50% by the spring. There is no dilution of that commitment, but we have recognised that ensuring that community alternatives are robust is absolutely fundamental, because as she is well aware, we have seen people taken out of hospital settings and put into the community, but ending up back in hospital because community facilities were not sufficiently robust. That is why, as part of the NHS long-term plan, both autism and learning disability are highlighted as one of the four clinical priorities.
The plan commits to building in full the right support, to continuing that support, and to reducing in-patient numbers by 50% no later than 2023-24. The key is an enduring commitment—not knee-jerk reactions to an awful circumstance such as that mentioned by the hon. Lady—to address the issue for vulnerable people in the long-term. We are clear that in assessment and treatment units, the sorts of restraints we are talking about should be very much a last resort. We are committed to supporting those with learning disabilities and autism to live well in the community, and to putting an end to inappropriate detentions.
The amendment seeks to make clinical commissioning groups in England and local health boards in Wales the responsible bodies for arrangements in cases where they commission the care of people accommodated in independent hospitals. I am sure the whole Committee agrees—I know the hon. Lady does—that it is vital to provide protection to vulnerable people in independent hospitals. We have all seen how the misuse of authority in such settings can lead to the kind of tragic and unacceptable consequences that she highlighted.
The Bill demonstrates the Government’s commitment to ensuring that vulnerable people receive protection. The Government have further strengthened those protections with amendment 9, which requires an approved mental capacity professional to conduct the pre-authorisation review if the cared-for person receives care or treatment mainly in an independent hospital. By requiring authorisations in independent hospitals to be considered by an AMCP, regardless of whether there is any objection, we add a further level of security. The AMCP will meet with the person concerned, complete a consultation and review assessments to decide whether the authorisation conditions are met.
I further reassure Members that the AMCP will act independently of the responsible body. I know that the hon. Lady has concerns about that. The AMCP will be approved by a local authority, act as an independent decision maker and be accountable to their professional body. Those acting as AMCPs will be experienced professionals who have successfully completed approved post-qualification specialist training, which will require them to demonstrate the capability to ensure and promote the person’s best interests and protect their rights.
Barbara Keeley
The point I was making very strongly, and which I ask the Minister to consider again, is that it is easy to see a situation in which the relationship between an independent hospital and a preferred list of AMCPs could get very cosy, with the AMCPs working only in those hospitals and the work starting to become a large part of their livelihoods. The Minister cannot reassure me that that would not happen. The responsible body is entirely responsible for the whole process of selecting the AMCP and making the arrangements, and it can just plump for the same people time and again, and develop a cosy relationship. That is a real fear.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady has legitimate concerns. Making the responsible body the independent hospital was a recommendation in the Law Commission report. Amendment 19 changes the responsible body in cases where a CCG or a local health board is responsible for commissioning the care of people for the assessment or treatment of a mental disorder.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I was reflecting on the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South about the risk of the relationship being too close, cosy or convenient. Has the Minister considered giving the CQC a wider brief to investigate what happens between the various parties over a range of authorisation decisions in any given period? If a relationship that could be regarded as unhealthy was developing, that would presumably be an easy way of highlighting that.
Caroline Dinenage
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his suggestion; we will definitely take it into consideration. I fully understand where the concerns about independent hospitals acting as a responsible body come from. We must be careful not to stigmatise all independent hospitals. Every time we have such debates, we hear horror stories, but then I always get emails from parents who feel that their children’s lives have been saved by such hospitals. We must make preparations to care for those who are most vulnerable and at risk.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Following up on what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, said, does the Minister agree that if she took up the idea of the CQC having such a role, we would need something in the Bill to ensure that if it identified a cosy or questionable relationship, someone could do something about that? In CQC reports now, homes are identified as totally inadequate, but no one can do anything about it, because the CQC will take a decision only at the very, very last minute, by which time it is matter of closure.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point; we have to look at that interaction. The AMCP will be a professional social worker, will be accountable to a professional body, and will have the high level of skills and training to enable them to carry out their job with great professional integrity. However, the reasonable concerns that have been raised by hon. Members need to be taken into consideration, and I find the suggestion that they make in this amendment very interesting; I have a good deal of sympathy for it, and am certainly willing to reflect further on the amendment. The problem is that its exact wording does not work. We need to ensure that any changes work for the whole system. We also know that there are examples of NHS England commissioning the care from an independent hospital; it is not just CCGs. With that in mind, I commit to considering this amendment further. I hope that answer enables hon. Members to withdraw it.
Barbara Keeley
Our concern is that the Bill enshrines a fundamental conflict of interest by allowing independent hospitals to be the responsible body for deprivation of liberty in their own hospitals. That is what is wrong: they have that power in their own hospitals. They are not independent of the people who are in those hospitals, and the important thing is that, as I have described, these are organisations with a vested interest in putting people in their hospitals. There was not much debate about this issue in the House of Lords, because the Lords concentrated on the role of care home managers, but the point was made that the vested interests of independent hospitals are different from those of NHS hospitals.
NHS hospitals are not perfect. We have had awful issues in them; Connor Sparrowhawk’s death happened in an NHS hospital, as did other deaths. As the Minister will know, when somebody is admitted to an NHS hospital, the pressure on the system is to get them discharged. That is not the case here. The Minister knows from the case of Bethany, which I cited, and from other cases that the vested interest of independent hospitals is to keep people there. Maybe we should be looking at fee levels separately, because that is part of that vested interest, but there is a vested interest, and I would not be content to allow the situation that this Bill permits. Independent hospitals have a very substantial vested interest; the Minister heard the figures that I gave. Those are serious amounts of money, and a serious waste—it is not even a good use of money in the NHS.
Independent hospitals often receive hundreds of millions of pounds in public funding every year. They are not all bad, I am sure, but programmes such as the BBC’s “File on 4” and journalists such as Ian Birrell have repeatedly revealed cases in which they are bad and things are going wrong, the most recent being the Priory group and the death of young Amy. That hospital was making £720 million out of the NHS every year. These hospitals receive public funding, and they are not up to the job that they are doing. I ask the Minister for Care to accept that these independent hospitals are, in too many cases—we do not know what proportion—deeply flawed. The company I just mentioned had been criticised by the coroner 20 times since 2012—Southern Health had a lot to answer for—so we are not talking about one or two deaths.
As I mentioned, 40 people died in assessment and treatment units between 2015 and 2018. There are numerous cases involving the bodies that the Bill designates as responsible for organising this whole process, and that is what is wrong. The Government amendment, which will involve AMCPs in these cases, is not sufficient. It is clear to me that the power of deprivation of liberty should never lie in the hands of the organisations I have talked about, which are making such profits and have such vested interests.
The Minister is clear that she wants to address the appalling abuse that is sometimes meted out in independent hospitals, and I believe she is sincere about that. However, without this amendment, there is a danger that the Bill will enable more of that type of case, because it is clear to all parties that more cases will be dealt with under this new process than under the Mental Health Act 1983—and the Act has more safeguards.
In my view, the wrong signal is being sent at this time of heightened concerns about these hospitals. If the Minister is concerned about this issue, she should be prepared to accept the amendment. We will press it to a Division; it is important that we do so. If there is anything we can do to improve the amendment before Report, we will do it, but we are going to press it to a vote today.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Caroline Dinenage
I beg to move amendment 3, in schedule 1, page 8, line 19, leave out from “mainly” to “that” in line 21 and insert
“through—
(i) the provision of NHS continuing healthcare under arrangements made by a clinical commissioning group, or
(ii) in Wales, the provision of an equivalent to NHS continuing healthcare under arrangements made by a Local Health Board,”.
“NHS continuing healthcare” is defined, for England, by paragraph 8 of new Schedule AA1. This amendment provides that in the case of arrangements carried out through the equivalent of NHS continuing healthcare, in Wales, the responsible body is the Local Heath Board making the arrangements.
This is just a technical amendment that will help to ensure that the new liberty protection safeguard system, which I am sure we all agree is a really important part of this process, works well in Wales. There is no statutory definition of “NHS continuing healthcare” that applies to Wales. The amendment clarifies that, while in England the CCG will be the responsible body when care arrangements are mainly done through continuing healthcare, in Wales, local health boards will act as responsible bodies, if the arrangements are mainly carried out through the provision of an equivalent to NHS continuing healthcare, as defined in English legislation.
In the new system, the responsible body will have the important role of arranging pre-authorisation review, in which a person independent of delivering the day-to-day care or treatment will review the arrangements before authorising them. This is a vital safeguard in a system that will ensure that arrangements receive proper scrutiny.
I put on the record my thanks to colleagues in the Welsh Government who have worked with us to ensure that the drafting of this amendment will allow the system to work in Wales as the Law Commission recommended and as the Government intend. I ask the Committee to support the amendment.
Barbara Keeley
We welcome this amendment, which gives clarity on arrangements in Wales, so that there is uniformity with England through the equivalent to continuing healthcare arrangements.
Amendment 3 agreed to.
Barbara Keeley
I thank my hon. Friend for introducing his amendment. Through the progress of the Bill, we are discussing the circumstances where it is appropriate to deprive someone of their liberty. That should never be done lightly. Nobody should be deprived of their liberty unless it is in their best interests. That point is really worth making and it should go without saying, but the Bill does not give an assurance that this will always be the case.
I acknowledge that other areas of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 discuss this interest, but it is such a vital point that it bears being made again. We cannot leave practitioners in any doubt that best interest must be foremost in their mind when they are making decisions. Best interest, of course, should not be entirely decided by practitioners. Even where people lack capacity, we must do everything we can to take their wishes into account. Again, I hope this is an obvious point, but it is not in the Bill.
Part of the difficulty of having such a short Bill is that many words should be included to make the concept clear and they are not there. I am sure the Government do not wish to see people deprived of their liberty when it is not in their best interest. I am absolutely sure about that. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government will ensure that that is the case.
The amendment also makes clear that deprivation of liberty should be allowed only if there are no less restrictive alternatives—that is a key point. Nobody should be deprived of their liberty because it is easier, cheaper or requires less paperwork, or, indeed, because it is more expensive and makes a profit for firms. If there is a way to keep somebody safe that does not deprive them of their liberty, we should always seek to pursue that.
I have touched on the fact that thousands of people with autism and learning difficulties are currently held in assessment and treatment units. A number of people in mental health hospitals, independent hospitals and others are being held under the Mental Capacity Act. I gave the numbers of applications that are made under the deprivation of liberty safeguards earlier. We know that they are kept in isolation and denied freedom. I have no doubt that in some cases they were exhibiting challenging behaviour, and that became the path of least resistance. That is why it is very dangerous. If the amendment were accepted, hospitals and care homes would have to consider whether there were less restrictive ways to keep someone safe. Those other less restrictive ways may not be the easiest to organise, but that is not a good reason to deprive somebody of their liberty.
As the Minister knows, these topics were all raised in the House of Lords. She may say that everything will be laid out in the code of practice, but we do not have that in front of us and, as I made clear earlier, it will not carry the same weight as statute. The Bill is relatively short and it can bear additions; indeed, it is so brief that it needs them. Putting these provisions in the Bill would make intentions clear to practitioners. The deprivation of liberty should be a last resort and, of course, should never happen if it runs against a person’s best interest. The intention of the amendment by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak is noble and I hope the Government will take it on board.
Caroline Dinenage
I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak for highlighting the issue, about which I always listen to what he has to say. Of course, he is quite brilliant in his own special way, and he has taken a lot of time to engage with me and to do his homework on the subject, which is close to his heart. I am grateful for that.
I share the hon. Gentleman’s sentiment. As the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South said, we are talking about depriving somebody of their liberty, which is our most fundamental human right, so we cannot do it quickly, based on cost, or based on the current system, which Simon Wessely described as a “perfunctory and box-ticking” exercise. It has to be done with people’s best interests, and their wishes and feelings, at heart. Excellent care and the interests of the cared-for person have to be at the heart of everything we do.
In responding to the points the hon. Gentleman made in moving the amendment, it is worth reminding hon. Members that the Bill will not replace the current Mental Capacity Act 2005, but amend it. Best interest decision making remains fundamental to the existing Act, within which the liberty protection safeguards will sit. Before a liberty protection safeguards authorisation is considered, it will need to be decided that the arrangements are in a person’s best interests. That is included in section 4 of the 2005 Act. It must then be demonstrated that arrangements to enable that care and treatment are necessary and proportionate.
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the words “necessary” and “proportionate”, but the word “proportionate” was chosen because it has a specific meaning in human rights case law. It means that assessors must consider less restrictive options, and cannot base their decisions purely on cost or any other box-ticking exercise. The word “necessary” is used in conjunction with the word “proportionate” in the Bill, which means that the arrangements must benefit the person.
That part of the liberty protection safeguards takes place at the second stage test. I agree with hon. Members that it is fundamental for people deciding whether to authorise a deprivation of liberty to consider whether less restrictive options are available. A necessary and proportionate assessment would also include the consideration of less restrictive practices. Considering less restrictive alternatives is already an important aspect of the wider 2005 Act. In fact, the fifth principle of that Act specifies that decision makers have to have regard to less restrictive options. Nothing in the Bill changes that. Indeed, we will ensure that that is a core part of the consideration of what is necessary and proportionate.
On the matter of wishes and feelings, which the hon. Gentleman talked about so powerfully, it should be noted that they are already part of the first stage of best-interest decision-making under section 4 of the 2005 Act. I can confirm that the Bill does not change that. Wishes and feelings will form a key element of the necessary and proportionate test. During the Bill’s passage in the other place, we tabled an amendment that makes it explicit that regard must be given to a person’s wishes and feelings in relation to arrangements. We tabled a second amendment that explicitly requires the cared-for person to be consulted under the consultation duty. Those amendments were made purely because we agree that the person’s wishes and feelings should be at the heart of the liberty protection safeguards process.
I hope that that provides some clarification and reassurance for the hon. Gentleman. I am certainly not in the business of keeping the Bill as small and tight as possible just for the sake of it; if there are amendments that I feel will materially add to the Bill, I am more than happy to take them on. In this case, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.
Steve McCabe
I was not planning to press it, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Caroline Dinenage
I beg to move amendment 4, in schedule 1, page 11, line 19, leave out from beginning to end of line 7 on page 12 and insert—
“13 (1) As soon as practicable after authorising arrangements, the responsible body must ensure that a copy of the authorisation record is given to—
(a) the cared-for person,
(b) any independent mental capacity advocate appointed under paragraph 39 to represent and support the cared-for person,
(c) any person within paragraph 39(5) in respect of the cared-for person (the “appropriate person”), and
(d) any independent mental capacity advocate appointed under paragraph 40 to support the appropriate person.
(2) As soon as practicable after authorising arrangements, the responsible body must take such steps as are practicable to ensure that the cared-for person and any other person listed in sub-paragraph (1) understands—
(a) the effect of the authorisation,
(b) the right to make an application to the court to exercise its jurisdiction under section 21ZA,
(c) the programme of regular reviews specified by the responsible body in accordance with paragraph 35(2),
(d) the right to request a review under paragraph 35(3)(b),
(e) the circumstances in which a referral will be made to an Approved Mental Capacity Professional under paragraph 35(4),
(f) the circumstances in which an independent mental capacity advocate should be appointed under paragraph 39, and
(g) the effect of there being an appropriate person in relation to the cared-for person.”
This amendment substitutes a new paragraph 13 of the new Schedule AA1 to require that, as soon as practicable after arrangements are authorised, the responsible body must provide to the cared-for person and any other person listed in paragraph 13(1) a copy of the authorisation record and take steps to ensure that those people understand the matters described in paragraph 13(2).
This amendment relates to the responsible body’s duty to provide information to the person receiving protections, an appropriate person, or an independent mental capacity advocate. When depriving someone of their liberty, it is crucial that they are provided with all the information necessary for them to exercise their rights. Arrangements under liberty protection safeguards will not simply be something that is done to a person, but a process they are part of—I hope that I have already explained that quite plainly in answers to previous amendments.
The duty to provide information derives from article 5 of the European convention on human rights, which is brought into effect in UK legislation through the Human Rights Act 1998. The Law Commission did not outline this duty in its draft Bill. However, views expressed in the other place have made it clear that this Bill should reflect the right to information explicitly on its face. This amendment has therefore been tabled to provide clarity on exactly what is required.
The amendment requires the responsible body to provide a copy of the authorisation record to the person under protection, as well as any appropriate person or independent mental capacity advocate, or IMCA, as soon as practicable after the authorisation is granted. It also specifies that the responsible body must, as soon as practicable after authorisation, ensure among other matters that the person understands the effect of the authorisation and their right to challenge it in a Court of Protection.
The amendment replaces the amendment inserted in the other place on this matter, which was unfortunately not workable within the existing Mental Capacity Act. The Lords amendment set out a range of information that should be shared with the person, but it did not provide clarity on where this information should be shared, which could lead to practical difficulties for practitioners and create exactly the sort of legal loopholes we are trying to avoid.
The Government amendment clarifies exactly what information needs to be provided and to whom, as well as specifying a clear point at which information should be shared. It will impose a legal duty on responsible bodies, so it must be clear where these duties arise. Information can, of course, be shared prior to this point, and in most cases we would expect and encourage this. We will set out more details of this in the code of practice and hopefully make that as explicit as possible.
The amendment is explicit about the point at which the information about the authorisation must be shared, and I hope the Committee will support it.
Barbara Keeley
Opposition Members cannot support Government amendment 4. The evidence provided to this Committee by Lucy Series suggests:
“Article 5(2) ECHR requires information to be provided to the person—or others capable of representing them—about the legal and factual basis for the deprivation of liberty and rights of appeal, in a language that they understand, so that they can exercise rights of appeal.
Both the DoLS and the MHA”—
the Mental Health Act—
“set out in statute who is responsible for providing this information to the person and any others representing or supporting them. It places explicit duties on the detaining authorities to take all practicable steps to help them to understand it. Surprisingly, this Bill did not contain rights to information when first read in the House of Lords; section 13 on ‘rights to information’ was inserted into the Bill after…a vote in the Lords.”
The Government’s new amendment would restore the fundamental imbalance in proposals that were removed by the House of Lords in the current paragraph 13 in regards to rights of information. Paragraph 13 established that the individual would receive information about their rights in a meaningful way in advance of the authorisation. That was a critical addition. Being giving information before authorisation of a deprivation of liberty is a fundamental human right.
Where a person would not be able to understand the information, it must be given to others capable of representing their interests. That is also a crucial condition, for several reasons, which were explained in the debate in the House of Lords. First, receiving information is critical because, in many cases, having information given to cared-for people and their families at the outset can clear up misunderstandings that can unsettle the cared-for person. Most people will not know what the liberty protection safeguards are, let alone have a good understanding of how they work. Knowing what the liberty protection safeguards are, the reasons for a cared-for person’s detention, and what recourse they have to change the situation in which they find themselves are critical parts of the entitlement to appeal. Knowing that the cared-for person can review this decision reduces anxiety, even if they do not wish to exercise that right of challenge at that point.
Alex Cunningham
Some people say that all I need now is to be a lawyer and an accountant, and then I will have done all of the bottom four professions when it comes to public confidence and respect. However, I enjoyed my time as a journalist, my time in the gas industry and even my time running my own business. I have always believed that more information is better than less, because people can then take what they want from it. They can understand what they want and they can challenge it.
However, the information also has to be timely and easily understood. In moving the amendment, the Government actually want people to have less information, and for it to be less timely. The Minister is shaking her head. Maybe even if there is the same amount of information, it will not come at the right time, and people will not be able to use it to understand, to decide a way a forward and to advocate for the person in care. In the light of what I just said, which the Minister refuted by shaking her head, what measures will the Government actually take to ensure that the information provided to the person being cared for and to appropriate persons is actually understandable, and in clear and simple language?
Many organisations and individuals submitted evidence to us that the consultation process for the Bill had been complicated and excluded people with learning difficulties. The very fact that we did not have an evidence session probably bears that out. Are there are any guarantees that those with learning difficulties will actually be able to understand the copy of the authorisation record and other materials and what they mean?
A person with a specific speech and language problem may be able to make some decisions if information is presented to them in a way that they understand. Has the Minister made any assessment of the use of speech and language therapists to communicate the authorisation records and subsequent information relevant to a person’s deprivation of liberty?
We have seen evidence from family members of those being cared for, and I have been contacted by constituents on this. They have told me that they are finding out about the authorisation of deprivation after the record has been issued, and that they are concerned that the cared-for person would not have been effectively communicated with. Does the Minister agree that speech and language therapists should be involved prior to the authorisation, to fully understand the circumstances?
Alex Cunningham
The Minister is nodding her head, which is very good news. She has given me that reassurance, so perhaps I do not need to continue with this particular line of questioning.
We should be very careful that a communication issue is not missed prior to an authorisation being recorded. Just because somebody cannot communicate in the same way that we can does not mean that they cannot communicate.
Alex Cunningham
Again, the Minister nods her head, but that opportunity must be long before a final decision on the deprivation of liberty. We must take every possible precaution to ensure that those with an interest in the wellbeing and care of the cared-for person are informed at every possible stage—before the point at which the Minister proposes that should happen. She must be clear that timely information must be given, and she must accept that to remove paragraph 13 of schedule 1 would weaken the rights of the vulnerable person, their family and any advocate. We need reassurances on those matters now, or on Report.
Caroline Dinenage
I completely agree that information sharing is vital in the system, and that it should be done at the earliest possible point. Liberty protection safeguards are not something that should simply happen to an individual, but something they need to be involved in from the outset. The Bill specifies that information must be shared after an authorisation is granted, purely because that is a legally cogent point. It includes having a watertight trigger point for information sharing from a legal perspective, but it does not prevent information from being provided beforehand.
Unlike the amendment tabled in the other place to existing paragraph 13, this amendment provides a clear trigger point to specify when information about the authorisation must be provided. We are clear that that point is absolutely the latest point at which information should be shared. In the vast majority of circumstances, that should be done much earlier, or at the very beginning of the process. The amendment does not prevent that from happening. The code of practice will provide detail regarding when it is appropriate to do that, and I have already made a commitment to the Committee to set out what will appear in the code of practice—
Barbara Keeley
The Minister cites legal points, but I read out earlier that article 5 of the European convention on human rights requires that a person be given information about the legal and factual basis for their deprivation of liberty so that they can exercise their right of appeal. Telling them after the authorisation process does not meet that requirement. I cited a case in which only on understanding their right to appeal was the person able to exercise that right, which brought about a less restrictive care situation. Apart from mentioning the code of practice again, the Minister has not explained why the focus has shifted from before an authorisation to afterwards. That cannot be right.
Caroline Dinenage
I hope that what I will say gives the hon. Lady more clarity. Amendment 4 follows the current approach in the deprivation of liberty safeguards system—the DoLS system—which requires information to be provided as soon as practicable after authorisation is granted. We agree that from a legal perspective, that is a clear point at which we will always be able to carry out that duty. Amendment 4 removes the requirement to provide information about the process, which was in existing paragraph 13. This is a matter of drafting, but the paragraph did not list the significant parts of the process about which a person must be informed.
The Bill ensures that the person has the right to representation and support from either an advocate or an AMCP. If there is no appropriate person and the person does not have capacity, there is an effective presumption that an independent mental capacity advocate—an IMCA—will be appointed. Responsible bodies will ensure that the person has representation and support. The Government amendment includes steps to ensure that the cared-for person and the IMCA understand the authorisation and the right both to review and to access court.
Steve McCabe
Can the Minister share exactly what the draft code of practice says on the matter?
Caroline Dinenage
No, I do not have that to hand, but I have explicitly said that we will set out what the draft code of practice will include. I hope that that will give the hon. Gentleman more reassurance.
Caroline Dinenage
We will do that during Committee. The hon. Member for Stockton North spoke about the involvement of expertise, particularly in assessing those with speech and language difficulties. That is something that I am really interested in. It was also raised on Second Reading by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), whom I met yesterday to discuss the matter. I am aware that sometimes a speech and language difficulty can be misinterpreted as somebody lacking mental capacity.
Speech and language therapists already play an important role. We are putting an individual’s voice at the heart of the process, meaning that speech and language therapists will play an even greater role. We agree that their skills are essential and that all relevant health care professionals will recognise the role of speech and language professionals. That will be part of the training for this new role.
Barbara Keeley
There will be confusion about this, because the Minister is going back over what she has already said. Can she explain to me and my hon. Friends why the Government amendment would remove the following important steps:
“Prior to the authorisation process, the cared-for person must be fully informed of their rights…The responsible body must take such steps as are practicable to ensure that the cared-for person and any appropriate person…representing and supporting them understand the possible outcome of the assessments, the reasons why the cared-for person may be deprived of their liberty and their rights—”?
I do not understand why the Minister thinks it is a good idea to table an amendment that starts:
“As soon as practicable after authorising arrangements, the responsible body must ensure that a copy of the authorisation record is given”.
We will lose the vital early stage of explaining to the person or their advocate what is going to happen, and explaining the person’s rights. Existing paragraph 13 has widespread support. I have explained to the Minister that I think the Government have done badly in talking to stakeholders. To remove a provision that has widespread support—I have quoted some of the organisations that support it—is really rather shocking. For the Government to remove the requirement to provide explanations and fully inform a cared-for person of their rights seems to me to be a contravention of human rights and a serious matter. The Minister has not explained why the Government are doing this.
Caroline Dinenage
Let me explain why in two short sentences. In delivering a better and more effective system, we must ensure it is legally cogent. That includes having a watertight trigger point for information sharing.
Caroline Dinenage
I am very happy to discuss the matter further with hon. Members, but the issue is that there is not a watertight trigger point. When we say that information must be delivered at the earliest opportunity, it is very difficult to codify and define that in law.
Steve McCabe
I do not want to get bogged down in legal technicalities, but why is it necessary for the legal trigger point to be after the authorisation has been made? Why could it not be at the start of the authorisation process? That could also be a defined legal trigger point, surely.
Caroline Dinenage
I am happy to commit to going away and looking at the matter again. I understand that it worries hon. Members; if I am honest, it worries me, too. As I understand it, the reason is that the starting point is different, depending on the individual circumstances.
That is the problem we have had with the current Bill, from beginning to end. We are looking to create a Bill that satisfies the needs of somebody like my elderly uncle who was living with dementia, as well as the needs of a 16 or 17-year-old who was born with a learning disability. We want the same Bill to cover the needs of a 30-year-old who has been involved in a road traffic accident and has an acquired brain injury.
It is very difficult to ensure that we cover the legal bases and offer the protection needed by every one of those individuals, with their own personal support requirements. That is why we have to pay close attention to what is legally cogent, and why it is important to ensure that the Bill contains a watertight trigger point.
Barbara Keeley
I read out the evidence given by Lucy Series to this Committee. I am not a lawyer. We are talking about legal cogency, and I think that that is a difficulty, but the European convention on human rights requires information to be provided to the person or the people representing them about the legal and factual basis for the deprivation of liberty and about their rights of appeal in a language that they understand so that they can exercise rights of appeal. Where is that in Government amendment 4? It does not appear to me to be anywhere. The amendment starts with “after authorising arrangements”. The Minister talks about cogent points, but she has not given me any cogent information about why she is shifting the point at which people are entitled to information to after the authorising of arrangements. That is not right. I have read out the evidence and advice given to the Committee by a very qualified lawyer, which is that the European convention on human rights insists that the information has to be given at the start, not halfway through the process.
Caroline Dinenage
I will say in response only that amendment 4 follows the approach taken in the current DoLS system.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Alex Cunningham
Indeed that is the case. There are probably thousands of people in the system at this time who are illegally detained, or whose freedom has been denied them; we can do without additional problems of the sort that my hon. Friend describes. I talked about the fall-back position: if there is nobody in the care home who can do this work, and it does fall back on the local authorities or some other organisation, they are already dealing with very strained budgets and an overload of work, so how do we fill that gap? Again, I ask the Minister how she will ensure that these organisations have the resources that they need, even if the duplication that she was describing earlier in the day is sorted out and the systems run far more effectively. I am aware that if our amendment is successful and these duties do not sit with care home managers, the bill for work by these other organisations will be all the greater. Again, how on earth will that be funded?
Of course, the system can work. I cite the case of the north-east of England, where the DoLS system probably works better than in other parts of the country—albeit that local authorities have chosen to take the political decision I talked about earlier. However, that is letting other services down because they feel that they must protect the interests of people whose liberty is at risk. I will return to my point about the north-east a little bit later, as I want to go back to the topic of care home managers. Does not the Minister agree that most of them should be working to improve or maintain their CQC ratings and all that comes with that, rather than carrying out those assessments of individuals in their care?
I intervened on the shadow Minister to talk about charges. Some care homes may even charge a self-funder an administration fee for the assessments. Who says that is fair, right, or proper—Members can use whatever word they like? Who on earth governs that, and who is protecting the person who is having to shell out the cash? What is to stop a care home manager from unnecessarily charging fees for “administration purposes”? Who is there to say otherwise? I said this morning that we need to protect the public purse and the purses of those who live in these establishments; this is another example of that. One of the pieces of written evidence we have received comes from a collective of organisations, including the Registered Nursing Home Association and Care England. It says:
“There is no reason for singling out care home managers for extra responsibility, over their colleagues in other care settings, except for to transfer significant costs from struggling local authorities to struggling care homes. The effect will inevitably be that some providers who continue in the sector…pass on the costs to the affected residents.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North discussed that.
So there we are: care home associations do not want the responsibility of assessments; the persons involved will not want the care home to have that responsibility; and we Labour Members, who probably matter less than them, do not want care homes to have responsibility for assessments, so why are the Government continuing to push this? Any opportunity a care home manager has to improve their organisation’s financial outlook is bound to be considered. That is all the more reason why it should not be their job to carry out assessments for a person when they have a vested interest—and a financial interest, at that. The Alzheimer’s Society also has a concern; it argues that we urgently need clarification of the role of care home managers, and how to protect the independence of the person being cared for. That is currently dealt with by best-interests assessors. My council of Stockton-on-Tees has raised concerns with me about the fact that the decision as to the necessity of assessment still appears to rest with care homes.
I thank Angela Connor and Natalie Shaw from the Stockton DoLS team for taking the time to talk to me about their work and how it will be affected by the Bill. They provided me with some follow-up notes, for which I am very grateful, because in one hour they built my understanding more than all the reading that I had tried to do. Like others, they posed many questions. Where is the quality assurance? Who is going to check that what they are doing is both correct and within the law? Despite the obvious conflict of interest, local authorities rely on assessments made by a care home manager, including allowing care home managers to carry out a consultation to determine a cared-for person’s wishes.
Between 2013 and 2018, there was a 5,000% increase in the number of applications under the Mental Capacity Act that my local authority received. Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council created the DoLS team in 2014 to manage the applications. As I said earlier, we are quite lucky in the north-east because there has been a regional arrangement in place that means that mental health assessors are paid a fixed fee of £175 for three assessments—buy two, get one free—and best-interests assessors are paid £175, again for three assessments.
As I mentioned earlier, the number of completions of DoLS in the north-east was higher than in the rest of the regions, and applications are taking a shorter time to process. Dedicated DoLS teams have been established across the region. Independent assessors are used, and that raises awareness with managing authorities. Yet the Alzheimer’s Society tells me that the Bill would remove the post of best-interests assessor; part of their responsibility will shift to care home managers, who I think are ill equipped to perform the role. The DoLS team in Stockton tell me that they believe that the Government’s proposals will lead to a diluted assessment.
I agree with what the Minister said this morning about ending the duplication of assessments, cutting out waste and targeting limited resources where they are most needed, but that must not be done by diluting the assessment process. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say to address the concerns of so many stakeholders in this area.
The Government’s proposals, under which care home managers, who are held responsible for providing care, are also responsible for assessment, are not in the best interests of the person affected. I do not believe that the Government intended to create this clear conflict of interest. If care managers are not to be removed from the process entirely, I hope the Minister will outline in detail exactly how this serious situation is to be avoided. We may have to rely on information provided later. A code of practice is all very well, but we need the detail now. If we do not have the assurances we require, how on earth can we support the Bill?
Caroline Dinenage
I thank hon. Members for raising important issues today. We have heard what amendments 20 to 29 would do. It is worth setting out that care homes already have an important role in the DoLS system. They are responsible for identifying where a person lacks capacity, and for working out where restrictions might be needed as part of care. They are responsible for making an application to a local authority. Because of the current backlog, they are responsible for chasing that deprivation of liberty safeguard, which gives them the legal protection that they need when they are keeping somebody in their care.
It is important that care home managers continue to play a central role in the liberty protection safeguard system, but we completely recognise that it would be a conflict of interest to have care home managers completing assessments. I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Stockton North was a bit confused, or whether I misinterpreted what he said, but there is no plan for care home managers to do the assessments; they are just gathering the information required. We amended the Bill in the other place to reflect that.
Barbara Keeley
I have picked up that it was generally thought that Ministers, and possibly the Bill team, have a rather honeyed view of the relationship between local authorities and care home managers, and of how much care home managers get involved in care planning. She has just illustrated that point.
These are the points that the Minister seems to be ignoring and needs to answer. First, 11% of care homes have no manager; there is an 11% vacancy rate. Secondly, one in 20 care homes requires improvement or is inadequate. She has talked about care home managers being involved in care planning, but that does not happen in the 11% of care homes where there is nobody there to do it, or in inadequate homes. In the care home that collapsed recently in Tameside, the staff effectively took over almost everything. There are many care homes—thousands, according to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North—possibly dealing with 70,000 people, that are not in an acceptable situation. There appears to be no recognition in the Bill, or in anything around it, that that is the case with our care sector.
Caroline Dinenage
I understand the hon. Lady’s concerns, but she is not 100% correct. Where there are concerns about the care home, it is possible for the local authority, which would normally be the responsible body, to carry out these functions. Care home managers should be able to arrange assessments and identify and provide valid assessments previously completed by the responsible body. Let me say why. This goes to the crux of why care homes and the system face this overwhelming bureaucracy today.
Let us take a straightforward case, such as that of my uncle, whom I spoke about earlier. He was in a care home—he is sadly no longer with us—and he was very happy. We were very happy with him being there. There was a clear medical assessment of his condition and his state on the care home’s books. Why couldn’t the care home manager gather that? If there was no care home manager, or if the local authority—the responsible body—had any concerns about that person, their role, or their ability to fulfil that function, they could do it themselves, as they currently do.
Steve McCabe
The Minister told the Committee earlier that she did not want to put too much detail in the Bill in case that in itself became a restrictive problem. If good care home managers are already involved in and informing the process as part of good practice, why does that need to be specified in the Bill? She is telling us that this happens anyway. Presumably, this could be cited in her code of practice as an example of good practice. The role of the care home manager that she describes is one of informing the responsible person, and using their knowledge and experience, gained through engagement and regular contact with the individual, to help inform the process. Presumably, that is just existing good practice, and it could be included in the code of practice. She may want to follow her own example of not cluttering her Bill by being too specific. This is an opportunity to take something out to help her achieve what she wants to.
Caroline Dinenage
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that kind offer, but we intend to build on the role that care homes already play. Care home managers already daily identify that a person may lack capacity and need restrictions, take part in constructing a care plan, and liaise with mental health professionals. We are committed to supporting them further in doing that, ahead of implementation. We want to make sure that training for the workforce is delivered, and want the development-type model that I have spoken about.
I spoke a lot today about reducing the backlog. That will help enormously in reducing the burden that falls on care homes. They will not have to keep chasing applications that are in local authorities’ backlog in order to get protections regarding the legal right to hold somebody in their care. The care home manager is often in a strong position to identify whether a person objects to the arrangements. Having a role in the consultation allows them to do this.
Alex Cunningham
We can all acknowledge that there is a role for care home managers in the system, but I see them as a small cog in the engine, rather than the driver of the machine. Does the Minister understand the issues around the lack of competence in many homes? How will she spell out somewhere in the legislation who picks up the pieces? She replied to my hon. Friend the shadow Minister on this, but she has not been clear on who does the work that she is expecting the care home manager to do if the care home manager does not exist or is not competent.
Caroline Dinenage
I am more than happy to do that, and I will deal with that shortly. The amendments would remove the role from the care home manager entirely, and would separate the liberty protection safeguards from the wider care planning that is already being done. It risks recreating the existing failing system, in which DoLS are too often considered a separate, overly bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all, box-ticking exercise.
We have to be careful. The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South rightly spoke about not castigating local authorities. She also mentioned that we must not demonise care providers. I agree. Of our care providers up and down the country, 83% are rated good or outstanding. They provide an incredible level of professional integrity and care, as well as daily vocational commitment, sometimes in difficult circumstances.
Barbara Keeley
I want to pick up what the Minister for Care says about DoLS being a box-ticking process. I have given at least two examples of people being freed from a totally inappropriate care setting because of a well-run DoLS process. The DoLS process runs well in my local authority, in Stockton and in other large authorities. Let us not denigrate that. With regard to care homes, 83% are better than satisfactory, but 17% are not, and 11% have vacancies. Unless we are talking about a figure in the high 90s, we cannot have confidence. We have properly trained DoLS assessors. She is calling that a box-ticking exercise, and says that half a day’s training for a care home manager—when almost one in five of them are not doing an adequate job—is somehow going to be better. It is not. It will be disastrous in some cases.
Caroline Dinenage
I would just say to the hon. Lady that I am quoting Sir Simon Wessely. In his view, this is too often a bureaucratic tick-box exercise and does not put the individual, their wishes, feelings and best interests at the heart of what we are all trying to achieve. I would also reinforce what I said to her before: the responsible body can decide to carry out these functions where there are concerns about the quality of the care provider. That might be because there are inexperienced staff at the helm, or no care home manager, or even particularly strong social worker involvement. When it is appropriate, the responsible body can carry out the functions. The Bill already makes provision for the involvement of social workers and allows for that where appropriate. We also need to ensure that self-funders, who have had very little involvement from a responsible body, receive protections. Removing all forms of role for care home managers could easily risk such people falling through the cracks.
The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South raised a couple of issues that I want to address. We absolutely agree that families should be able to object, and the Bill is very clear that those with an interest in the welfare of cared-for persons can flag objections on the person’s behalf. An AMCP can review the case. That can be done directly with the responsible body, bypassing a care home, which solves the problem where people have the experience that the hon. Lady spoke of, where they do not have a good relationship with the care home. If they do not have confidence or are worried about raising concerns, the AMCP can be triggered.
The Bill already makes provision for the involvement of social workers. It already allows that, where appropriate, the responsible body can take on the functions from the care home if there are any concerns. My biggest concern is, in a nutshell, that these amendments, if passed, would risk fundamentally weakening the protections available to people. On that basis, I ask hon. Members to think seriously about the amendments, which are effectively recreating a system that we have all recognised is not fit for purpose, and I ask the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South to withdraw her amendment.
Barbara Keeley
We have had a very useful debate. It has been really helpful to hear the useful contributions from my hon. Friends, although I have to say it is very quiet on the Minister’s side. It is a pity that we are not hearing more from that side, as I am sure there are people here with useful experience as constituency MPs.
Although progress was made on this issue in the House of Lords, there is still potential for a conflict of interest to arise in relation to the role of care home managers. I do not resile from what I said: the provisions in the Bill risk further entrenching a postcode lottery in our social care services. We already have a postcode lottery and it could be much worse.
We believe that this is a serious situation, where local authorities diligently retain some of their role, while others are delegated to care home managers. On the point that the Minister covered at the end of her speech, it is particularly unacceptable for care homes to retain a role in carrying out the consultation. I gave case study examples where cared-for people and their families become wary of expressing objections to the people delivering care for fear of reprisals. It is true that in care homes, with GPs and in NHS hospitals people do not always say what they feel about the treatment they receive because they are so worried about reprisals, and that is very much the case with ongoing care situations. I gave several examples where family members were stopped from seeing a cared-for person after objections were raised. We have to take that seriously.
As we heard, as well as it being inappropriate that care home managers retain a role in carrying out the consultation, it is not clear to me at all from meeting organisations such as Care England, the network representing care home managers, that they want or are willing to take on the role. As we mentioned, they are currently under significant strain. That is a real factor. Having an 11% vacancy rate for registered care home managers is another real factor. Adding another role to them, without proper resourcing, will inevitably lead to services suffering.
In our discussions on the Bill, we need to have a proper debate about resources, because there was no time to discuss it in the Lords. There has been no real discussion on it yet, and it is absolutely crucial. There is a cost, as I covered in my speech, and we cannot just shunt the role on to care home managers who do not even want it.
Some care home providers are concerned that local authorities will delegate the role without providing training or additional resources to care home managers. I talked about the backlog of pay claims for sleep-in rates, which is a problem. Care England and the care home networks feel very strongly that a shunting-across is going on that will lead to financial difficulties for them. It will lead to care homes either leaving the market or no longer taking on clients who require deprivation of liberty authorisations. As I outlined, those could be cases of people involving dementia or brain injury. They will not take those cases if they think there is going to be a lot of admin linked to the processes.
Health and Social Care
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
…The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned 16 and 17-year-olds. We have given very careful thought to how to include 16 and 17-year-olds and to how the Bill will interact with other legislation including the Children Act 1989, and we are very comfortable that it works alongside existing legislation. It is also a Law Commission recommendation to bring the provisions in line with the Mental Health Act, as he will be aware.
[Official Report, 18 December 2018, Vol. 651, c. 757.]
Letter of correction from the Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage):
An error has been identified in the response I gave to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones).
The correct response should have been:
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
…The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned 16 and 17-year-olds. We have given very careful thought to how to include 16 and 17-year-olds and to how the Bill will interact with other legislation including the Children Act 1989, and we are very comfortable that it works alongside existing legislation. It is also a Law Commission recommendation to bring the provisions in line with the Mental Capacity Act, as he will be aware.
The Source NHS Drop-in Centre
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
I thank the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) for securing this important debate and for the characteristically strong and comprehensive way in which he has brought this matter to the House’s attention. He always stands up for his constituents, and this evening is no exception.
This Government are committed to providing high-quality services, commissioned by clinical commissioning groups and NHS England on a local, regional and national basis. Ultimately, we want to continually improve health outcomes for individuals, communities and society as a whole. We believe that GPs, working with other healthcare professionals, are best placed to co-ordinate the commissioning of high-quality care for their local patients.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about the Source in Horn Park with great knowledge. I totally recognise his concerns about the decommissioning of the drop-in centre in 2016, and I understand the importance of people having access to services near their homes. From what he says, it sounds like this service was well valued and well used, and the location of the estate poses unique challenges to people being able to access the services they need. Equally, that is always balanced against the provision of the right services of the best possible quality. My understanding from the CCG is that its decision to decommission the Source was part of a range of actions taken to ensure that it continued to make high-quality services available to the residents of Horn Park and reduce duplication. Greenwich CCG says that, since closing the Source, it has expanded the range of services available to residents of Horn Park. That includes opening a GP access hub clinic at Eltham Community Hospital, which is located within 2 miles of Horn Park. The GP access hub is open seven days a week, with appointments available from 8 am to 8 pm on weekends and on weekday evenings until 8 pm. Patients can book appointments through any Greenwich GP at a convenient time that suits them. Overall, the CCG says that it provides an improved quality of service for local residents. Unlike those seen at the Source, patients who attend that hub will be seen by a Greenwich GP who has access to patient records. The GP will have vital information on long-term conditions, allergies and vaccinations, improving the quality and safety of care.
It should be noted that Eltham Community Hospital already offers a broad range of high-quality services to the people of Greenwich, including walk-in blood tests and walk-in X-rays. It also provides public health services, including long-term contraception and help with smoking cessation. Alongside that, we are always keen to promote local pharmacies, which are on hand for a range of services, including advice on various issues and flu vaccinations free of charge, but I note that the pharmacy on Horn Park estate has also shut.
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s position. The Source was a much-valued local facility, and there are always concerns when a well-used and well-loved facility closes and clinicians decide it is time to move to a different model, although it is right that decisions about local health provision should be made at a local level. I understand his concerns about access to services. The CCG informs me that a local bus service—the B15—connects Horn Park estate with all three Greenwich GP practices and Eltham Community Hospital.
I have heard the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about how the CCG has engaged with local residents and how it did—or, in fact, did not— listen to their views. I would like to be very clear that the Department does expect commissioners to engage properly with their communities before making any decisions on this level of service change. I am pleased to hear that the CCG has now agreed to facilitate and promote a further meeting on Horn Park in January 2019 with the hon. Gentleman and with ward councillors. I hope that that will be a good opportunity for him to raise what sound like some very valid concerns and to seek alternative options to present the evidence that he has collected in his petition and his survey. I very much look forward to hearing the outcome of that meeting and I hope that they will be positive for his area.
More generally, on 21 November, the Prime Minister announced £3.5 billion of funding for primary and community health care a year, in real terms, by 2023-24 under the long-term plan for the NHS. She also committed to grow spending on primary and community healthcare as an overall share of the NHS budget. As part of the development of this plan, we will be talking to system leaders, patients and other experts to understand how we can overcome certain challenges, like the one that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, in a sustainable and positive way. In the meantime, I do very much recognise his concerns and thank him very much for bringing them to our attention. I hope that his meeting with the local CCG proves to be fruitful and very much look forward to hearing its outcome.
As the last speaker from this Dispatch Box this year, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I take this chance to wish you, your team, the Clerks, staff and security a very merry Christmas—
Clive Efford
Yes, just briefly. I would like to stress one point. Horn Park is an extreme example of how health services have moved away from the most deprived communities. There is an issue about accessing health services. These are the communities that are most distressed and most in need of having direct access to those services. If the Minister ever has an opportunity to talk to Greenwich CCG, will she bear that in mind when she does so and draw it to its attention? I think we could improve our health outcomes a great deal if we were to address that issue.
I wish all those who serve us here in the House a very happy Christmas.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and I will of course raise it in any conversation that I do have with Greenwich CCG. He is absolutely right to say that we should be doing everything we can to close the health inequalities that people experience up and down our country.
May I, Madam Deputy Speaker, wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and peaceful new year?
Madam Deputy Speaker
Thank you. As we approach the Adjournment of the House for the Christmas recess, I would like to thank everyone who works in this building, and in Parliament generally, who supports Members of Parliament in all the work that we do. We could not do without the Clerks, we could not do without all the other people who work here, and we certainly could not do without everyone in the Tea Room. I particularly wish a happy and peaceful Christmas to all Members of Parliament on all sides of the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [Lords]
Caroline Dinenage ExcerptsTuesday 18th December 2018
(5 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019 View all Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 147(a) Amendment for Third Reading (PDF) - (5 Dec 2018)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Our liberty is one of the most fundamental of our human rights. Depriving people of that liberty is something that must be done with the greatest of care and with respect for individuals, and not as a tick-box bureaucratic process—a one-size fits all—that leaves vulnerable people without protections and in an unspeakable backlog. That is what we are facing today.
I thank all hon. Members for their contributions today. I will aim to cover all the questions that have been raised and will write to anybody whose points I do not get to. I start by stressing from the outset that liberty protection safeguards are not about detainment, but about appropriate arrangements being in place for the purposes of care and treatment.
We have heard it argued that the Bill has been rushed through. The Law Commission looked at this issue for three years, and the Joint Committee on Human Rights has looked at it. The Department of Health and Social Care has spoken endlessly to stakeholders. We are determined to get this right, but we continue to consult people across both Houses in order to do so.
Let me address the issue of three-year authorisations. This was a Law Commission recommendation, and the provision is geared towards people like my grandmother who live with dementia—people with long-term progressive conditions from which they are unlikely to recover. Their families tell us that they are part of an unnecessary and intrusive measure that they have to repeat every single year, when there is essentially no way that their loved one’s condition will improve. It is in such scenarios that the Bill allows the flexibility to deliver tailored protections that best support the individual depending on their needs.
The three-year renewal can be used only after two one-year renewals. Furthermore, the responsible body is required to specify a continuous programme of reviews if a person’s circumstances will change. That will address the issue of fluctuating conditions that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately). We will also set out further details of fluctuating conditions in our code of practice.
The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) talked about the code of practice, which will be a statutory document. It will be co-produced in consultation with the sector, the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Adult Services and the third sector, and it will be laid before both Houses. It will not be in the body of the Bill, because the problem at the moment is that there is a one-size-fits-all process in legislation, but people will have to pay regard to this statutory document.
The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned 16 and 17-year-olds. We have given very careful thought to how to include 16 and 17-year-olds and to how the Bill will interact with other legislation including the Children Act 1989, and we are very comfortable that it works alongside existing legislation. It is also a Law Commission recommendation to bring the provisions in line with the Mental Health Act, as he will be aware.[Official Report, 7 January 2019, Vol. 652, c. 1MC.]
Under the Bill, every authorisation must be reviewed by somebody who does not deliver the day-to-day care and treatment of the person. That is how we will avoid a conflict of interest for care home managers and independent providers. We want to drive a culture where independent hospitals are considering appropriate arrangements and where there are less restrictive alternatives available. This was also one of the Law Commission’s recommendations. However, we need to ensure that there are sufficient safeguards, which is why, in addition to introducing the consultation duties and the role for appropriate persons or independent mental capacity advocates, we will be tabling an amendment to ensure that every individual in an independent hospital setting will be assigned an approved mental capacity professional to complete the pre-authorisation review. That is regardless of whether the individual or their family object to the deprivation of liberty.
The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) talked about speech and language. It is vital that communication needs are considered where relevant, and we would expect that a speech and language therapist will be consulted in order to establish the individual’s wishes and feelings. It is really important that those wishes and feelings are very much at the centre of the process.
Members have spoken about the interface with the Mental Health Act. We have broadly recreated the current interface with that Act. The Mental Health Act review did make recommendations on that interface, but Sir Simon Wessely himself said that the Government need to consider the implications of the interface as part of the consideration of that Act. He said that the reform of DoLS cannot wait when there are 48,000 people waiting more than a year for protections to which they are entitled.
If the Opposition’s amendment succeeded, we would be stuck in a broken system with a bureaucratic backlog, in which 125,000 people are waiting for protections. Professor Simon Wessely said that this Bill strikes
“a better balance between the importance of care planning and the provision of (all too often) perfunctory and box-ticking procedural safeguards around that care.”
That makes it clear that action must be taken.
Through this Bill, we are ensuring that people’s wishes are always considered and respected, and that people are safe, cared for and looked after. We are talking about changing a system that is currently not fit for purpose. We have attempted to be collaborative at every stage of the Bill so far. We are driven by a relentless desire to make it as strong and effective as possible and worthy of the vulnerable people we are seeking to protect. We want their loved ones and healthcare professionals to have faith in it, and we will never swerve from our commitment to what is necessary, proportionate and in the best interests of the individual. We commit to working with individuals across this House to make sure that this Bill is in the very best possible shape.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Diabetes: Artificial Pancreas
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
I thank the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) for his incredible work highlighting the importance of the right treatment for type 1 diabetes and of making use of technology in that treatment. I also thank him for giving us this opportunity to debate the issue. He has made some incredibly valuable suggestions, as indeed has the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). I have listened with great interest and will carefully consider some of their fascinating suggestions.
Supporting the rising number of people with diabetes is one of the major clinical challenges of the 21st century, and improving outcomes and care quality for those living with, or at risk of, diabetes are key priorities for the Government. The right hon. Member for Knowsley correctly highlighted the role that modern technologies, when properly used, can play in the care of people with type 1 diabetes. Key to managing it is, of course, monitoring and controlling glucose levels, and—as he explained in great depth—a number of different technologies are available for that purpose, including glucose monitoring devices and insulin pumps.
As the right hon. Gentleman said, artificial pancreas devices are an emerging technology that combines continuous glucose monitoring with insulin pumps. One system, the Medtronic 670G system, which he mentioned, was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and a European licence is being pursued.[Official Report, 23 January 2019, Vol. 653, c. 3MC.] Large randomised clinical studies of similar systems are now beginning and several are expected to come to the market in the next five years. Teams in the UK are leading some of that work.
The right hon. Member for Leicester East talked about the funding of research on diabetes. The Department funds such research through the National Institute for Health Research. In the last five years, the NIHR has awarded just over £144 million for work on diabetes, and 346 active projects are taking place across the NIHR infrastructure. One of them involves the closed-loop insulin delivery system to which he referred.
Giving people access to diabetes technology as swiftly as possible is, of course, a priority. Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, said recently:
“Tens of thousands of people with Type 1 diabetes across the country will benefit from life changing glucose monitors on the NHS.”
The announcement referred to the FreeStyle Libre, a device that the right hon. Member for Leicester East also mentioned. NHS England will ensure that flash glucose monitoring is available on prescription to all patients who qualify for it in line with current recommendations. From April 2019, all qualifying patients will be able to receive it from their local GP or diabetes team.
The right hon. Member for Knowsley talked a lot about structured education and psychological support. In line with existing NICE guidelines, structured education should be offered to all patients within 12 months of diagnosis of diabetes. As he said, reported attendance levels at structured education courses have historically been low, but they continue to increase, and this year alone NHS England has invested £10.5 million to improve attendance by people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Keith Vaz
May I pursue another point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth)? I understand that the NHS is still paying providers, even though people do not turn up. That is a big problem. We need to look at the providers. There is a reason why people do not turn up. We need to change the system in order to make them more able to do so.
Caroline Dinenage
That is an excellent point. The purpose of the £10.5 million that I have just mentioned is to improve attendance. It is clearly necessary to look at the way in which the service is provided and at who is providing it, and to ensure that it is provided in a way that will make people attend.
The right hon. Member for Knowsley spoke about improving care for those with diabetes and eating disorders, including what is often referred to as diabulimia. I think he will be pleased to hear that NHS England is supporting two pilots to test, trial and evaluate the effect of integrated diabetes and mental health pathways for the identification, assessment and treatment of diabulimia.
We will continue to create a health system that supports innovation, promotes the testing and development of health technology, and ensures that the best innovations are used so that patients can benefit as quickly as possible.
Question put and agreed to.
Joint Committee on the Draft Health Service Safety Investigations Bill Pre-legislative Scrutiny Report
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
The Government are, today, publishing their response to the report of the Joint Committee on the Draft Health Service Safety Investigations Bill which conducted pre-legislative scrutiny on the Bill. The Committee’s report was published in August 2018.
We published the draft Bill in September 2017 which set out legislative provisions to establish a new independent body to investigate healthcare safety incidents in the NHS in England.
I would like to thank the Chair and the members of the Committee for their report and commitment to improve this legislation. I would also like to thank all the contributors to the scrutiny process and all those who over the past three years have helped to shape and inform the development of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch and the Bill. I believe this scrutiny process has made a significant contribution to how we should move forward in improving safety and safety investigations in the NHS and the way we learn from incidents when things go wrong.
A copy of the response to the report will be laid before both Houses.
[HCWS1133]
Health and Social Care
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Caroline Dinenage
To mark the fact that it will be 10 years since the Autism Act was passed, we will start a formal review of that piece of legislation and the autism strategy, to ensure that they remain fit for purpose and heading in the right direction.
[Official Report, 27 November 2018, Vol. 650, c. 156.]
Letter of correction from the Minister for Care:
Errors have been identified in the response I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge).
The correct response should have been:
Caroline Dinenage
To mark the fact that it will be 10 years since the Autism Act was passed, we will start a formal review of how that piece of legislation has been put into practice, including the autism strategy, to ensure that they remain fit for purpose and heading in the right direction.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
People with learning disabilities still face significant health inequalities. Data from 2017 shows that about half of patients with a learning disability received an annual GP health check, and our target is 75% by 2020. We will shortly consult on plans to introduce mandatory learning disability and autism training for all health and care staff.
Marsha De Cordova
There are shocking health inequalities between people with learning disabilities and the general population, and that is recognised by GPs: 60% say that they have received less than a day’s training in how to meet the needs of patients with learning disabilities and autism, while 98% say that they would appreciate more training. The Government are clearly failing people with learning disabilities. Will they commit themselves to ensuring that every new GP who is trained in England is also given training in how to meet the needs of people with learning disabilities and autism?
Caroline Dinenage
Yes. That is already part of the training framework. As I have said, however, we are consulting from early next year on plans to make training on learning disabilities and autism mandatory for all health and care staff, not just medical professionals.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
Let me start by thanking my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for his support last Thursday on 22q Awareness Day; 22q11 deletion syndrome is second only to Down’s syndrome in its prevalence as a genetic condition, but perhaps surprisingly, there is a remarkably low level of awareness among GPs of this condition, which can lead to avoidable mental health issues in children. Will the Minister meet me to discuss options to increase awareness in the first instance, but also to improve early diagnosis and treatment?
Caroline Dinenage
I congratulate my hon. Friend on all the excellent work that he is doing to draw attention to this condition, and I should be happy to meet him.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Community healthcare plays a vital role in helping people stay independent and healthy. Last week, the Prime Minister set out a major new investment in primary and community healthcare worth £3.5 billion a year by 2023-24.
Sir Hugo Swire
I am extremely grateful that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State came down to East Devon on his first visit outside London. He was able to visit the health and wellbeing hub that we have created in Budleigh Salterton, learn about the beds that we have kept in Sidmouth and Exmouth, and see Ottery St Mary Hospital. Will the Minister instruct all her officials to work collectively with us and the local community in Ottery St Mary to ensure that the hospital has a great future and fits in with the rest of local healthcare provision?
Caroline Dinenage
First, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his elegant Movember facial decoration. I very much recommend that he keeps it.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was delighted to visit the East Devon constituency recently, where he was impressed by the work at some of the existing community hospitals and care hubs and discussed with Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust how it will work on a sustainable future for the constituency’s community hospital in Ottery St Mary.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Since the Department says that it likes community hospitals, why are services and wards closing at the Richardson in Barnard Castle?
Caroline Dinenage
We know that patients prefer to be treated in their local area, which is much better for preventing hospital admission and getting people out of hospital for longer. However, such clinical decisions must be taken at a local level in consultation with local people.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
Dartmouth has lost its much-loved community hospital. Unfortunately, that loss has been compounded by the closure of River View nursing home, which had been due to house some replacement facilities. The total loss of community beds in isolated coastal communities such as Dartmouth is causing a collapse of trust in such programmes. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the situation in Dartmouth and the loss of nursing home and community beds?
Caroline Dinenage
I will of course meet my hon. Friend. She is right that we need to keep such valuable local resources right in the community, where they are most needed and where they keep people out of acute hospital services and surrounded by their friends and family.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
The usage of Caithness General Hospital in Wick in my constituency is way below what it was originally designed for, causing my constituents great anxiety if they have to travel over 200 miles to Inverness and back. Mr Speaker, you will tell me that such matters are devolved, so will the Government share best practice on community hospitals with the Scottish Government and NHS Highland?
Mr Speaker
What a wily fellow to get the question in order. Well done, man.
Caroline Dinenage
I am happy to work with our colleagues in Scotland to push forward best practice in helping to support community facilities and to ensure that they are investing in facilities at the heart of people’s local areas, which is where they are needed.
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)
Wantage Community Hospital was built and opened by the local community in 1927, but it has been closed for two years. Moves are afoot to improve both our local health centre and health facilities in Didcot, but all that must be joined up and the community needs an answer. Will the Minister use her power to convene a meeting of local stakeholders and her officials to find a way through the maze and a future for our hospital?
Caroline Dinenage
I am always happy to speak to my right hon. Friend about such things. I understand that the intention is now to move to a more place-based approach to health and care planning in his local area, but all such changes are subject to consultation.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
I will be honest, I am confused. We have heard the Minister say several times that community approaches are important, but our walk-in centre in Eastham is yet again being threatened with closure. Which is it—do this Tory Government want crowded A&Es or proper walk-in centres that will prevent people from unnecessarily ending up at A&E?
Caroline Dinenage
I do not think I can make it any clearer: this Government are committed to providing community services right where people need them, and we are putting our money where our mouth is. Last week, the Prime Minister announced a major new investment in primary and community healthcare of £3.5 billion.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
The learning disabilities mortality review—the LeDeR—investigated 1,000 early deaths of people with learning disabilities in hospital settings, but today major concerns have been raised by the parents of Oliver McGowan about the way in which some deaths have been investigated. The Secretary of State knows that 40 autistic people and people with learning disabilities died in assessment and treatment units, and he has called for a year-long review of the use of seclusion in ATUs. But that is not urgent action. Will he commit to stopping the use of ATUs immediately and to looking urgently at how early deaths are being investigated, particularly that of Oliver McGowan?
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
I have met Oliver McGowan’s mum, Paula, on a number of occasions, so I am more than aware of this case. I have spoken to her about the deeply distressing report she has had on Oliver’s death. The NHS is looking into this case and will continue to work with Bristol University to further develop and improve guidance and local review teams.
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
Next year marks 10 years since the passing of the Autism Act. What more can the Government do to support people who suffer from autism?
Caroline Dinenage
To mark the fact that it will be 10 years since the Autism Act was passed, we will start a formal review of that piece of legislation and the autism strategy, to ensure that they remain fit for purpose and heading in the right direction.[Official Report, 29 November 2018, Vol. 650, c. 4MC.]
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
My constituents Kirsteen and Wilma Ord have had their lives blighted by the Primodos hormone pregnancy drug. The review that the Government undertook was a whitewash, and now the further review, led by Baroness Cumberlege, will focus only on people in England. She has said that she will consult groups in Scotland, but drug regulation is reserved. What will the Minister do to promise that my constituents will not be let down again?