Stephen O'Brien (Shadow Minister, Health; Eddisbury, Conservative)

I do not intend to revisit any of the issues that we have discussed. However, it would be helpful to place on record my concern that the Bill, and in particular the drafting that we have looked at in relation to the constitution, do not give fair weight to an important issue—one to which I certainly give weight and, judging from the Minister’s earlier response, one to which he also intended to give weight. We must show that we genuinely value social care as much as we do  health care. Because we are dealing with NHS services in NHS provision and therefore with an NHS constitution, there is a real danger, simply by referring to the document, of making a social care a second order area. It is difficult to attach an equivalent importance to social care in the absence of a social care constitution.

I recognise that we are all governed by the very high expectations that the Government have encouraged us to have of the Green Paper, whose publication is imminent. That said, however, we need to recognise that social care is likely to be regarded as an untouched and slightly under-discussed subject; it may even be the Cinderella of the two aspects of care, even though it is so important to so many people. Although primary care deals with 95 per cent. of people who access health care, in the end social care tends to affect all of us, in one way or another, during the course of our lifetime. It is vital that we place on record—the point is best made in a stand part debate—that we want the social care aspects of the Bill to stand on equal terms with health care. Although it is difficult to see how that could be incorporated on the same footing, through our discussion of the Bill and this stand part debate, we can at least make sure that our intention is on the record. I shall be interested to see whether other members of the Committee feel equally strongly about that.

Mike O'Brien (Minister of State (Health Services), Department of Health; North Warwickshire, Labour)

We certainly regard social care as enormously important and on a par with health care. For much of the time, the two are inextricably linked. We take the view that that needs to be an important focus of Government policy, which is why we have been preparing the social care Green Paper. Given the importance of the issue, we will be publishing that shortly to ensure that we have a full and appropriate national debate.

As far as the issue of an NHS constitution is concerned, we do not propose to have a social care constitution because we do not have a national social care service; we have a national health service, and that requires a constitution. However, that should in no way diminish the key importance that social care should, and does, have to the Government.