Personal Care at Home Bill

My Lords, I strongly support Amendments 32, 33, 37 and 42. I was very interested in the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, who knows so much about dementia; her remarks were very sad. Amendment 37, tabled the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, also deals with dementia. It is important that there should be special provision for dementia, because there has to be recognition that people suffering from dementia have different requirements. I like the way in which Amendment 42, tabled by the noble Baroness, set out a great catalogue of things—that is practical. I am not sure, however—I am only speaking from my past experience of Bills in this House—about that approach. Usually, when someone sets out a provision listing everything that one could possibly think of, someone else says "Oh no, you should not make it like that, because there will be other things that you have not thought of, so you should put it in some other way to cover that". Moreover, there should perhaps be a code of practice or something like that, which would include all of those things—this might not be completely appropriate even for a schedule. However, it is right that people should view those topics that she has listed there. Having made those comments, though, I want to say that I really stood to support the noble Lord, Lord Best, on the provision of appliances and adaptations in a home. I repeat my comments from Second Reading: it is important that if a home is completely unsuitable and cannot be adapted in the way that he described for that elderly relative of his, then other housing should be available. Going right back to my social services days on the council, we were aware that housing, health and social services must be linked—a point that has been made now—and until they were linked it was pretty hopeless trying to run any of them, because each was affected by the others. I strongly support the point that has been made about linkage. The housing issue is wider than just this Bill. I read in this morning’s paper of some family that has lived in a tiny flat for 12 years waiting for a house—or it might have been five years, with an estimated wait of 12 years. Many people are looking for more space, and it should be possible to provide the ideal space for older people in great need in order to free up some of this other space, particularly in terms of social housing, where large properties are often occupied. People cannot be forced out of their houses but they should be persuaded that there is merit in the idea of leaving. If an attractive alternative were available that was better in health terms, I think that they would be willing to accept that. The noble Lord’s relation opted for a home simply because that was the only thing available. I am sure that if she had had the offer of a small self-contained warden-covered area, she would have been very happy to accept that. As I have said, in other countries, and to a certain extent in this country, people can buy units of special housing in the same way that, when they vacate them, the units must go on to someone else in special need. These are interesting amendments so, although they have come up so late in the day, I felt that I had to say something about them.