My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Warner’s amendment. There will of course be further debate on integration in the wider context of the Bill, but the amendment is important because it underlines that Health Education England must have the strategic overview and understanding of the workforce requirements across the boundaries of health and social care if it is to undertake its role effectively.
Our stakeholder meetings have shown that there is considerable concern among stakeholders on that issue. They want the links between HEE and the social care sector to be more explicit. The noble Earl’s reassurances last week in that regard concerning Clause 88 were helpful, and I look forward to hearing from him further on how HEE is to work with integrated care delivery. I hope that he will concede that my noble friend’s cross-reference in his amendment to Clause 85 is necessary, because it links the HEE’s duty in Clause 88 to have regard to promoting integration to its key role of ensuring that there are sufficient skilled healthcare workers available.
The Health Education England mandate acknowledges that the future needs of the NHS, public health and care system will require a greater emphasis on community, primary and integrated health and social care. HEE is essential in that. Staff must be trained and developed in the skills that are transferable between different care settings and in working in cross-disciplinary teams in a range of different health and support settings. It must also work closely with the social care sector by developing common standards and portable qualifications across the NHS, public health and social care systems. The local LETB role, linking up with the health and well-being boards, is particularly important in that respect.
It is worth briefly mentioning two recent reports on integration, both of which, among other things, reinforce how much awareness and understanding of each other’s roles must take place for integrated services to happen and to be delivered. The shared commitment statement under the National Collaboration for Integrated Care and Support was drawn up by an impressive mix of national partner organisations, including government departments, the HEE itself, regulatory bodies, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, National Voices and other stakeholder groups. It pledges to help,
“local organisations work towards providing more person-centred, coordinated care for their communities”.
There is not time to go into detail, but National Voices’ A Narrative for Person-centred Coordinated (“Integrated”) Care, which sets out what integrated care and support looks like from an individual perspective, for both the cared-for and for carers, is a powerful vision for the future. It underlines how closely staff across primary, community, NHS and social care will have to work if this is to be achieved. The section of
the narrative on communication describes professionals talking to each other, and patients always knowing who is co-ordinating their care, always being informed about what is going on, and having one point of contact. This in itself would be nirvana to most patients, service users and carers.
The recently published Nuffield Trust report, Evaluation of the first year of the Inner North West London Integrated Care Pilot, looks at developing new forms of care planning for people with diabetes and people over the age of 75. It underlines the importance of staff having a high level of commitment to the pilot and to the care planning process in particular. Initial results show that work on care planning and multidisciplinary groups resulted in improved collaboration across the different parts of the local health and social care system.
On public health, the HEE mandate itself states:
“The health of people in England will only improve in line with other comparable developed countries when the entire NHS, public health and social care workforce genuinely understands how their services together can improve the public’s health”.
Does the Minister accept that the HEE mandate supports the case for the Bill to include an explicit reference on the overall strategic context?
HEE’s role is to provide national leadership for workforce training, planning and development, ensuring that we have skilled, committed staff in the right place, in the right specialities and numbers. We need to meet these challenges of the future and of the changing face of healthcare provision. How to ensure an integrated approach to education and training across the NHS, public health and social care is a very strategic issue. I hope that the Minister will reassure the House on this by responding positively to the amendment.