Respite Care for Vulnerable Adults: Teesside

Debate between Jim Shannon and Alex Cunningham

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight an issue which is specific to Teesside, but which I am sure will have parallels throughout the country. Let me start with a well-worn quotation:

“If you’re one of those families, if you’re just managing, I want to address you directly. I know you’re working around the clock, I know you’re doing your best, and I know that sometimes life can be a struggle.”

Ministers are probably fed up with Opposition MPs quoting those words spoken by the Prime Minister just 20 months ago, on the steps of Downing Street. We keep mentioning them in many different contexts while we see our communities suffer as the promise that followed fails to meet their needs.

Parents of some of the most vulnerable people in our community believe that there is a respite care crisis in Teesside. No one works harder around the clock, doing their best and struggling to cope and care, than the parents and siblings of vulnerable adults, some of whom have the most complex needs imaginable. Those vulnerable adults, with some of the most extreme personal needs, may be in their 30s, 40s or even 50s, which means that the parents caring for them are in their 50s, 60s or 70s. We as a society owe those parents and carers a huge debt of gratitude. They choose to care for their loved ones at home. They do not hand them over to the state because they cannot cope; they get on with the job. They endure the sleepless nights, they clean up after their family members, and they give them the love and dedication that they need. To be honest, they do not ask for much in return for the huge burden they shoulder on behalf of us all, yet we often let them down by failing to provide the support they need, and on Teesside that appears to many to be getting worse instead of better.

I know that this issue is not exclusive to Teesside, but this evening I want to speak on behalf of the parent carers whose loved ones use the residential provision at Bankfields and Aysgarth on Teesside, and all those families who rely on residential respite care to give them a break from caring and have just a little bit of time for themselves.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate; we have almost an hour and fifteen minutes to speak on the subject, which will be nice. One in 10 people in Northern Ireland are carers, and what the hon. Gentleman is describing is happening in Northern Ireland as well. Does he agree that short-term respite care must be provided to assist in securing the long-term benefit of keeping people in their homes and semi-independent, and that respite care should be offered, and should not have to be begged for?

[Alex Cunningham]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I agree with him: the longer people are supported to stay at home, the longer they are not an even greater financial burden on the state. I will develop that theme later.

Such is the crisis in health and social care in our country that our NHS commissioners face difficult choices, and families are very worried that they could be facing a substantial cut in the provision offered to them as the local clinical commissioning groups seek to stretch the limited resources they have to meet an increase in demand for support. The CCG for north Tees and Hartlepool and the South Tees CCG are reorganising the way they provide residential respite care. When I met the north Tees chief executive on Friday, she told me of the need to have needs-based services and the plan to review exactly what each individual needs. I know, and so does the Minister, that we must have equity in the system and meet the needs of each individual, and I do not have a problem with that, but, sadly, the review is being interpreted by the families as a cut in provision, with some believing they could lose up to half their respite nights, which they are very anxious about.

I definitely agree that provision should be right to meet the needs of the individual, but this issue is much greater than that: it is also about the needs of the whole family, and perhaps the CCG should have conducted a needs assessment before deciding on the review. In fact, I have always thought that the respite care was very much for the family— an opportunity to take a break from their caring responsibilities, to recharge the batteries and to prepare to resume what they see as their duties.

The CCG has been at pains to stress to me that its proposals do not necessarily mean that there will be a huge reduction in the number of respite nights, but it recognises things will change for some people and is working with families and piloting different ideas to try and improve provision and reassure them. While I think the CCG could have handled this whole business better and understood more comprehensively the issues from the perspective of the families and the various local authority and joint health scrutiny groups who oppose the plans, I cannot say it is its fault.