Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, perhaps I may speak to the amendments in this group which are in my name. First, Amendment 110A concerns NICE guidelines and is very much like that tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Newton and Lord Butler. In fact, theirs may be even better than mine so I intend to say no more than that we are interested in the Minister exploring this issue, because those noble Lords both more than adequately covered the points that need to be made in that regard. I am also very pleased to support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Royall and to put my name to those, because the role of specialist nurses is extremely important. Amendments 118, 119 and 120 concern the duty of the board to reduce inequalities. Proposed new Section 13G of the 2006 Act states that the board must, "““have regard to the need to—""(a) reduce inequalities between patients with respect to their ability to access health services;""(b) reduce inequalities between patients with respect to the outcomes achieved for them by the""provision of health services””." This seems a rather narrow definition concerned solely with health services, which I assume flows from the continual and overriding responsibility of the Secretary of State for tackling health inequalities. I would be grateful if the noble Earl could confirm to the Committee how the Secretary of State intends to tackle health inequalities—what information he will need, where he will get it from and how those decisions will then be moved through the proposed structures of the National Health Service Commissioning Board, the CCGs and so on. Surely, the health and well-being boards would want to have some involvement from the NHS on health inequalities, so Amendment 118 seeks to ensure that the board has health inequalities in its remit. I particularly refer the Minister to the letter from the NHS Future Forum to the Secretary of State on 17 November where it devoted much attention to the NHS role in improving public health and made its claim that the NHS must design its services in a way that both promotes good health and prevents poor outcomes. It is thus important that the legislation provides sufficient leeway to allow the NHS Commissioning Board to do this and that legislation relating to health inequalities is not confined solely to the provision and commissioning of services. What is also important, in coming to my Amendment 119, is that funding to the clinical commissioning group reflects the deprivation levels within its area. Can the Minister tell the Committee whether there has been a risk assessment on the issues of funding? What risks has the department found that go with the levels of funding that might be made available on the basis of deprivation levels within areas? Of course, the decision of the Secretary of State not to make clinical commissioning groups area-based is a serious problem in ensuring a population base for commissioning, but it will be doubly important to ensure that clinical commissioning groups with large numbers of deprived patients receive financial support. I would be grateful if the Minister could spell out the intended principles behind the funding associated with clinical commissioning groups. On Amendments 110B, 127ZA and 190AA, which concern maternity services, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, has adequately covered the major concerns about those services and we would be keen to support her amendments. I am grateful to the Royal College of Midwives for its briefing on these amendments. My only questions are about maternity networks and the recognition of their potential contribution to the type of maternity care and providing clinical commissioners with expert guidance and advice on driving up standards. The Committee will be very pleased to hear that I do not intend to share any birthing stories. On the other hand, I am concerned. Without a national standard for maternity services, how will the new commissioning arrangements avoid significant variations? We know, for example, that there is a significant variation between trusts in the number of home births that take place. We can explore the reasons for that, but I would like to know how the new structures would deal with such variations and how that would be reflected in the work of the National Health Service Commissioning Board.