Elderly People (Hansard, 6 June 2000)

§ 7. Mr. Bill Michie (Sheffield, Heeley)
If he will make a statement on his plans to improve services for elderly people. [122866]

§ The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton)
We are determined that older people should receive higher standards of care from the NHS and social services. That is why the national service framework will, for the first time, set national standards for the care of older people. Our plans to develop intermediate care services will also play an important part in promoting the health, independence and social inclusion of older people. We shall announce our response to the royal commission on long-term care later this summer.

§ Mr. Michie
I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Earlier this year, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced that he was setting up a new tier of intermediate services between hospitals and primary care. Can my hon. Friend inform the House what form that is likely to take? What steps have been taken to deal with age discrimination in the NHS?

§ Mr. Hutton
We shall announce detailed proposals on the introduction of new intermediate care services across the NHS later this summer. Like other hon. Members, my hon. Friend will be aware that intermediate care involves a variety of different services, some of which are designed to support people more effectively at home, some to prevent them from being admitted to hospital in the first place and others to improve the active recovery and rehabilitation of older people when they are ready for discharge from hospital. It is certainly clear that we need to improve the range of services available to older people in all those three key areas, and we will certainly take forward detailed proposals to do so.
I make it clear to my hon. Friend, his constituents and everyone listening to Question Time that age discrimination—discrimination of any kind—has absolutely no role in the NHS. It fundamentally contradicts a basic ethos around which the NHS was established: treatment should be available on the basis of clinical need. We fully subscribe to that and shall challenge and root out any practice in the NHS that discriminates against older people simply on the ground of their age.

Miss Julie Kirk bride (Bromsgrove)
The Minister has already been made aware by my hon. Friend the Member 153 for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) that there are about 500 people outside the House campaigning against the closure of Kidderminster general hospital.

§ Mr. Andy King (Rugby and Kenilworth)
Opportunist.

§ Madam Speaker
Order.

§ Miss Kirkbride
For the elderly citizens of Kidderminster and of my constituency of Bromsgrove, can the Minister explain how their services will be improved by taking the 20-mile journey to the Worcester hospital when some of them cannot drive and bus services are infrequent, if they exist at all?

§ Mr. Hutton
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State addressed some of those concerns when answering the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill). On services for older people, all I will say to the hon. Lady is that her constituents will benefit from the additional resources and the new services that we will make available to improve care for older people. When those announcements are made and she can see the benefits, I hope that she will be the first to say that the Government are doing the right thing.

§ Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich)
Is my hon. Friend aware that private nursing homes do not maintain the same standards as NHS units? Should there be any suggestion that people should vacate NHS beds and move to units that do not maintain the same standards, many of us, as we would not accept that for members of our own families, would not accept it for our constituents.

§ Mr. Hutton
My hon. Friend is exactly right, and neither would we. That will not happen. When those new services are developed, we shall make clear the specification that we expect in return for the investment. I can tell her that we are also taking parallel measures to improve the standard of care in all nursing homes, and we will make further announcements about that in the near future. Let me make it clear to her and to the House that there is no question of the new intermediate care services being in any way second tier or second class. They will be of the highest possible quality. We shall make sure of that.