I am sorry about the confusion and I thank my noble friend Lord Davies for helping to clear it up.
Amendment 217 seeks to tighten up important safeguards for patients and their carers by adding a new clause after Clause 80. Clause 80 repeals current provisions under the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Act 2003 and regulations for hospital discharge, and paves the way for the discharge to access approach used particularly during the pandemic. I thank my noble friend Lord Davies for allowing me to move this amendment and not opposing the question that this clause stand part. I know he will want to speak at some point during the debate.
We know that during the pandemic the discharge to access approach led to some very welcome and innovative practices in getting patients out of acute settings in hospital into safer environments. The approach also led to tragedy, when untested patients or patients with Covid were transferred into care homes, causing the rapid spread of infection and, sadly, hundreds of deaths that could and should have been avoided. Evidence from key stakeholders to the Commons committee dealing with the Bill reflected a very mixed experience of this new process. In some areas the perennial and
disruptive issues around delayed transfer had eased and the process was working relatively well, while others sought much tougher safeguards or the end to the discharge to access process altogether.
Amendment 217 seeks to ensure the vital safeguards needed, which are particularly important since Clause 80 repeals key provisions but is not exactly clear on what replaces them. We are therefore seeking to add a new clause after Clause 80, ensuring that social care needs assessments take place by the local authority either before a patient’s discharge from hospital or within two weeks of discharge. It also requires the ICB to agree a process for the assessments with the local authority.
The amendment covers the need to have due regard to the care needs and welfare of the patient and ensures that the NHS meets in full local authority costs of caring for a patient while a social care needs assessment is taking place if the patient is discharged without one. It provides for the ICB to agree the social care needs assessment process with the local authority, including timescales and reporting on any failures, and the remedies and penalties that would apply if assessments were not carried out in the required time. We also call for monitoring and reporting to Parliament annually by the Secretary of State on the effectiveness of social care needs assessments after discharge, including information on patients who have had to be readmitted after 28 days.
Our amendment fully complements the remaining important amendments in this group, which seek to ensure effective safeguards before and during the hospital discharge process for carers as well as their loved ones under Clause 80, and for young carers under Clause 148. We fully support Amendment 219 providing an “NHS duty to carers” and ensuring that
“their health and wellbeing is taken into account”.
We support Amendment 221 on protecting carers’ rights and ensuring full consultation with them before discharge as well as consideration of their needs in terms of safety, information, services and support. We support Amendment 225 on the definition of carers, which restates the current and hard-fought-for legal rights of carers and young carers under the Care Act 2014 and the Children and Families Act 2014, including those relating to the parents and carers of disabled children. We also support Amendment 269 on the important right of young carers to needs assessments under the Children Act 1989 and the essential need for local authorities to consider the appropriateness of discharging a patient from hospital into the care of a young person.
Like other noble Lords, I am very grateful to the excellent briefings from Carers UK and from young carers. I look forward to the contributions of noble Lords. On hospital discharge, we know the original discharge to access guidance was twice published without any reference to carers. I suppose we must be grateful that the two paragraphs that have subsequently been added reinstate the Care Act Part 1 references and provisions for carers.
But this is not enough to maintain and protect the hard-fought-for rights of carers. Hospital discharge can be one of the most difficult points in the care system for both existing and new unpaid carers, who
are often taking on caring responsibilities without the right information and support or consideration of the impact on the carer as well as the loved one. Indeed, this can be the most traumatic time for new carers other than, of course, the shock of, and coming to terms with, their loved one’s sudden illness or disability. I can certainly endorse that from my own experience and my discussions with many other carers I meet. I know that carers still have many serious concerns about the current guidance and I will leave it to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley to vent the anger and frustration that is felt over some aspects of the guidance.
Amendments 221 and 225 seek to retain carers and young carers’ current and legal rights under the Community Care (Delayed Discharges) Act 2003—which contains a direct requirement to identify and consult the carer before issuing a discharge notice—and other key legislation, including the Children Act and the Children and Families Act, relating to young carers and parent carers of disabled children. I have added my name to Amendment 225. I feel particularly strongly about the need to include a definition of “carers” in the Bill and to stop the Government in particular but also the media and others using “carers” when, in fact, they are referring to care workers and not unpaid carers. As Carers UK says, absolute clarity and getting the terms right means a great deal to carers, especially when they have so few concrete rights. The two roles are not the same; they are different. There is huge frustration on this issue among carers as it feels as if we are going backwards rather than forwards. I want to know from the Minister what the Government are going to do to address this situation.
On young carers, with recent research showing that there could be as many as 800,000 children providing regular care, Amendment 269 from the noble Lord, Lord Young, to which my noble friend Lady Merron has added her name, takes on even greater importance to ensure that arrangements for discharging patients without a care needs assessment do not unduly impact young carers. It would also ensure that assessments by councils include consideration of whether it is appropriate for a younger carer to provide care. As well as that, support services must be in place for the safe discharge of the parent. We know that caring for parents, siblings and other relatives will have a significant impact a young carer—on school attendance, exam results and on their well-being and future careers. Every classroom in the country is likely to have at least one carer, and we must ensure that they are fully supported.
This is an important group of amendments and I look forward to the debate in the hope that the Minister will recognise the need for the important issues outlined in the amendments to be included in the Bill. To remind noble Lords, at the height of the pandemic, there were an estimated 13.6 million unpaid carers in the UK, 1.4 million of whom provide more than 50 hours of unpaid care a week. They are more than twice as likely to be in poor health than those without a caring responsibility, and 72% of carers did not have a break from caring during the pandemic and are exhausted and worn out. Carers deserve better than this—there is much to do. These amendments would at least ensure that their existing legal rights are protected and built on. I beg to move.