Care for the Elderly — 5 Feb 2001

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the NHS Plan's commitment to a care system founded on the principles of equity and fairness; regrets that the Plan discriminates against older people with chronic and long-term illness by continuing to means-test them for their own care; believes that the Plan creates a fault-line between nursing and personal care; further believes that the Plan fails even to provide nursing care free on the basis of need, limiting the concession to registered nurse time; and calls on the Government to implement the Royal Commission's proposals for personal and nursing care to be provided on the basis of a person's assessed need instead of means.

I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"welcomes the NHS Plan's commitments to a care system founded on the principles of equity and fairness; welcomes the measures the Government has announced to reform the funding of long term care and to invest in new health and social care services for older people; notes that this matches the extra spending on long term care recommended by the Royal Commission; believes that the implementation of free nursing care on the basis of need and not ability to pay will bring an end to a major injustice affecting tens of thousands of older people in nursing homes; welcomes the new investment announced in the NHS Plan of £900 million annually by 2003-04 in new intermediate care services for older people; supports the priority the Government has rightly attached to improving front line services for older people; and calls on the Liberal Democrats to set out what services they would cut in order to fund their proposals."

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:--

The House divided: Ayes 41, Noes 271.

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