My Lords, numerous reports from Select Committees of your Lordships’ House have recommended that the NHS and care system do things differently in order to use resources efficiently while providing better care and independence for patients. It is well known that most of us cost the NHS more as we get older, particularly if we have multiple morbidities. This is why the Government launched the Ageing Society Grand Challenge—to achieve five additional years of healthy life by 2035. So your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee looked into this and published a report on 15 January last year. Sadly, we had to conclude that the Government are not on track to achieve this.
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Amendments 236, 241 and 306, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, are relevant to this issue. They would require regulation for workers working in rehabilitation and reablement. The Science and Technology Committee looked into resources to enable older people to live safely and independently in their own homes, and this would apply to younger people coming out of hospital after a long period. We recommended that the Government make
“targeted and strategic investments in research for the design, evaluation and uptake of data-driven services, assistive robot technologies and AI for older people in order to develop national expertise and critical mass in this important area.”
We also recommended that internet access should be available in all homes and that older people be provided with digital skills, all with the objective of allowing more people with frailties and disabilities to live at home and not take up beds in acute hospitals or care homes.
Part of the training for the tertiary prevention activities mentioned in the noble Baroness’s amendments should include the ability to assess which of these technologies are appropriate for the reablement of each patient and the skills to help them learn to use them. Such technologies, correctly diagnosed and provided, could do a lot to reduce the pressure on residential social care and support. These tertiary prevention and rehabilitation activities are vital for levelling up health disparities, which means that the staff who deliver them are vital too, and that is why I support the noble Baroness’s amendments.