Clause 12 - Free provision of certain community care services

Part of Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:45 pm on 12 December 2002.

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Photo of Jacqui Smith Jacqui Smith Minister of State, Department of Health 2:45, 12 December 2002

I welcome you back to the Chair, Mr. Conway, for what I hope will be a more precise and more rigorous debate than we have had so far.

One of the challenges of scrutinising legislation, as well as of implementing it, is that we need to be precise about what we propose, how much it will cost, what its implications will be and what constraints will be imposed on it. The Government accept that challenge. Unfortunately, it seems that the Liberal Democrats do not. As my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) and for Erewash (Liz Blackman) pointed out, the Government take seriously their responsibility to ensure that we improve the range and quality of care available for older people, not just take a simplistic approach, as the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton) did.

That is why, on 23 July, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced that we would remove charges from intermediate care and community equipment. The clause enables us to do that. We have also made it clear that the purpose of the Bill is specific. In July, we set these reforms in the context of the expansion in services that is meant to help support social services, to provide more community-based services and to improve hospital discharge arrangements. In his statement, my right hon. Friend told the House why we had chosen intermediate care services. It is, as he said, because they help avoid older people going into hospital or help them to leave hospital speedily. Community equipment services are important, because they

''can make the difference between older people becoming dependent or remaining independent in their own homes.''—[Official Report, 23 July 2002; Vol. 389, c. 871.]

In other words, the Government have a clear idea of the objective to be achieved through the provisions in the clause.