My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for her outstanding work in this area. I was very moved by the remarks of my noble friend Lord Howarth in tribute to the care given to Baroness Hollis, who was such a tremendous force for good in your Lordships’ Chamber over many years.
Can the noble Earl clarify the point that has already been raised? In the letter from Ministers of 26 February it was said that the amendment would add palliative care services to the list of services that an ICB must commission. On the face of it, the amendment seems rather more permissive. Proposed new subsection 3(1) in Clause 16 states:
“An integrated care board must arrange for the provision of the following to such extent as it considers necessary to meet the reasonable requirements of the people for whom it has responsibility”.
There is then a list, which starts with “hospital accommodation”, which the ICB must arrange for—then on page 17 are a couple of provisions that seem rather more permissive.
The nub of the issue is this: we have fantastic palliative care in the mainly voluntary sector as well as in the National Health Service itself, but it is very patchy. The health service has been very reluctant to give long-term certainty to hospices and other providers of palliative care services, insisting on short-term contracts. The real question to the noble Earl is this: will this change as a result of this amendment? Where is the beef that will actually get the message across that we expect the health service to do a lot better than it has been doing in support of palliative care services?