My Lords, this amendment adds a new paragraph to the new Section 3(1) set out in Clause 16 and it seems clear that what Section 3(1) says refers to all that follows it:
“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”.
One has to look at reasonable requirements in relation to everything in that list, with the first being “hospital accommodation”. The idea that there might be some areas with no hospital access at all is absolutely ridiculous. So this is a qualification, to be fitted in as paragraph (ga).
Immediately before it is another provision, which refers to services considered
“appropriate as part of the health service”.
That seems to suggest that it is absolutely essential that the needs and reasonable requirements of people who need palliative care are met. ICBs do not need to provide palliative care for the whole community, but are required to provide it for the proportion of people expected to require it, namely those getting near the gates of death. That is a reasonable interpretation of this clause.
I believe it goes quite a long distance in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and others for some years have asked for. I do not think it feasible to say that nobody in an area will require palliative care—unless its inhabitants are people who live for ever, of which there are only very few. It looks to me as though this is well constructed to ensure that palliative care must be provided where people die, in the area of the integrated care board.
I entirely welcome Amendment 17 from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, but the crucial amendment is provided by the Government and is written in a way that will be very difficult for any care board to try to escape, because it is very clear.
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I also join the noble Lord’s tribute to Lady Hollis, who was such a tremendous source of value in this House, including, as many of your Lordships will remember, the time when she was able to get the House to set aside the order about capital provision for poorer people.