New Clause 9
Health Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Mike O'Brien (Minister of State (Health Services), Department of Health; North Warwickshire, Labour)
The hon. Member for Romsey shares common ground with us in wanting to ensure that people who need access to this sort of information get access to it. The only difference between her view and mine is that I think that the legislation is covered, in the sense that provisions are in place to enable access to such facilities. We would do no good in putting on the statute book something that is already there, merely because the provisions have not yet had the impact that she and I want.
Repetition does nothing. We need to ensure that existing legislation is used effectively. Governments and the House can put on the statute book provisions enabling those with disabilities to get the access and information that they need, but those powers need to be used and enforced. Sometimes that requires individuals taking cases; more often, it requires authorities and organisations to comply better.
I have no problem sharing the hon. Lady’s ideas, but we already have the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, which came into force in December 2006 and is working its way into place. It placed a new statutory duty, the disability equality duty, on public bodies to promote greater equality of opportunity for disabled people and required public bodies to make reasonable adjustments to meet the needs of people with disabilities. At the time, the Department of Health published “Creating a disability equality scheme: a practical guide for the NHS”, which included sections on monitoring within such a scheme. Further to that, in June 2009, the Government published the revised single equality scheme setting out how we intend to meet our duties under equality legislation, including the DDA. I will be happy to circulate those documents to the Committee so that members can be satisfied about the policy.
As for implementation, the Government are aware that the NHS can demonstrate examples of good practice, but we certainly acknowledge, as the hon. Lady observed, that there is still some way to go in order for equality to be mainstreamed and sustained. In other words, there is still a lot of work to be done. To address those practical issues, the Government put in place a number of initiatives, often working in partnership with the NHS and other key stakeholders. Of central importance will be the new equality and diversity council, which aims to improve the NHS’s equality performance for both patients and staff. Furthermore, as part of the pacesetters initiative, the Department of Health is working with six strategic health authorities and 34 trusts to trial different approaches to deep-seated inequalities, including those arising from disability. Evidenced good practice will then be disseminated widely in the NHS.
Last year, the Department, with support from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, trialled legal compliance workshops. A model workshop is now available for strategic health authorities to use, and NHS South West has already used the model to run its own regional event. As subsection (3) of the proposed new clause highlights, good equality data are needed so that the NHS can better draft and understand its equality schemes, plan, commission and monitor service delivery and plan and monitor work force developments. In November, a new equality monitoring guide covering all equality strands, including disability, will be issued. The guide will confirm the codes that the NHS should use when monitoring for equality and give good practice examples of equality data collection and use.
In other words, we have the law, and I do not think that we need to repeat it. What we need to do now is to find better ways of ensuring that it happens in practice for those affected and those with disabilities. That needs to be the objective.