Continuing Care (Hansard, 5 July 1994)

§ 6. Mr. Gunnell
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what measures she intends to take to clarify health authorities' responsibilities for continuing care.

§ Mr. Bowis
We shall shortly be issuing, for comment, clarification on the guidance to health authorities on their long-term health care responsibilities.

§ Mr. Gunnell
How many of the 50,000 beds that the Secretary of State plans to empty are currently filled by continuing care patients? How can health authorities follow the rulings of the health commissioner on the Leeds 138 case if patients cannot afford private beds and cannot find public beds because the Secretary of State has disposed of the furniture?

§ Mr. Bowis
It is for health authorities to plan and provide the beds that they need. The hon. Gentleman misses the point that the Leeds case on which the commissioner made his judgment pre-dated community care and the discharge agreements that every local authority has to have in place with its local health authority. It is not for politicians to decide when a patient should remain in a bed; that is a matter for doctors. When they have decided that a patient no longer needs a bed, the discharge arrangements are put in place. Until the needs of the patient have been assessed and arrangements to meet them are in place, the patient should not be discharged from hospital.

§ Mr. Sims
Is it right that a patient who no longer needs hospital treatment and is capable of being cared for in a different setting can insist on remaining in hospital and, at his own wish or under pressure from relatives, is legally entitled to occupy a much needed bed? Is the balance between rights and responsibilities accurate here?

§ Mr. Bowis
My hon. Friend makes a fair point. I shall not prejudge the guidance clarification that we are about to issue, but I assure him that we have looked carefully at the issue that he raises so as to ensure that we provide for patients who need hospital beds and do not give patients the right to have beds when they no longer have a clinical need for them.

§ Mr. Simpson
I am sure that the Secretary of State is aware of the nightmare abduction from Queen's medical centre last week of Abbie Humphries, who was taken from her parents' arms. Will the Minister take this opportunity to offer support and sympathy to Roger and Karen, her parents, at this terrible time, and will he congratulate Queen's medical centre staff who, within five minutes of the abduction, were on the main roads outside stopping buses and questioning passengers? Will the Minister resist pressure for premature endorsement of the idea that infant tagging would have prevented that abduction rather than made the response time longer? Will he support calls from the police who say that members of the public must know the woman who took baby Abbie and that if they have even a fragment of information that can help to solve this crime they should contact the police so that Abbie can be returned safely and quickly to her parents?

§ Mr. Bowis
The hon. Gentleman makes his point eloquently. I am sure that we all share the anguish of the parents of little Abbie. Our prayers are with those who are hunting for her, with her family and with her; our pleas are with the person who took her to return her to her family. I am sure that every maternity hospital and every maternity unit up and down the country is examining its security arrangements very carefully, to ensure that babies are safe in their care.