My Lords, I must apologise for not moving this amendment in its proper place on the first day in Committee. That was due to a misunderstanding on my part, and I apologise.
I put down this probing amendment to draw attention to the importance and relevance of interprofessional education in preparing different health and social care staff to work well together. It is recognised across the board that caring for the increasing proportion of the population with long-term problems requires teamwork. This will be more effective and economically efficient if the different members of the team understand the role and approach of other members of the team with whom they need to collaborate, be they social workers, nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists or doctors. At present, each healthcare worker may have no proper conception of the abilities and skills of those in another discipline, and that may lead to inefficient working, inappropriate decisions and learning by trial and error, if at all. One thinks perhaps of Stafford.
The duty to promote integration is much used in legislation but is mainly directed to administrators at a high level. For example, in last year’s Health and Social Care Act the NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups were directed to take note of the need for integration, and in this Bill promoting integration is a requirement on local authorities. In Clause 88, in which this amendment sits,
“HEE must have regard to … the desirability of promoting the integration of health provision with health-related provision”.
The detail of how integration is to be achieved is left to the bodies concerned, although there may well be, and certainly should be, guidance, which I have not
seen but which is perhaps to be published later. Perhaps the Minister can fill me in here. My amendment could perhaps be considered when formulating such guidance.
Interprofessional education needs to be carried out at educational or training institutions for clinical and social care professionals but also in continuing postgraduate education. Therefore, it is not only to Health Education England but to the General Medical Council, other professional bodies, royal colleges, universities, postgraduate deans and LETBs that this amendment is directed.
I do not have much time to describe the details of how IPE works, and this is not the right place to do so. Suffice it to say that it is not something I have invented off the top of my head but is a recognised discipline, led in this country by CAIPE, the Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education. It has branches in several countries on both sides of the Atlantic and has produced a number of publications describing the method and the institutions that have adopted it. It has also commissioned several evaluative studies which have confirmed its effectiveness. CAIPE is in touch with the Department of Health, and positive discussions have taken place. The Minister will probably know about them. In fact, I understand that CAIPE is due to meet Health Education England to discuss possible future collaboration. Interprofessional education is up and running in at least five universities, including Leicester, De Montfort, Bristol, Sheffield Hallam and Aberdeen.
I am aware that there are plenty of problems involved in getting different professions to receive co-ordinated education, not least logistics and timetabling. Students may not at first appreciate the need for understanding and co-operation, so do not always take kindly to what they may see as a diversion from their task of learning the skills needed for their chosen profession. However, once they meet each other, understanding can grow. Directors of education need to be convinced of the benefits of IPE. Its benefits are summarised well in a recent WHO task force report:
“After almost 50 years of inquiry, there is now sufficient evidence to indicate that interprofessional education enables effective collaborative practice which in turn optimizes health-services, strengthens health systems and improves health outcomes ... In both acute and primary care settings, patients report higher levels of satisfaction, better acceptance of care and improved health outcomes following treatment by a collaborative team”.
I shall be most interested to hear the Minister’s views on IPE and whether he agrees that it deserves to be more widely used in the National Health Service. I beg to move.