Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I, too, support Amendments 210 and 217, for the reasons which the two noble Lords who have just spoken have given in respect of mental health and learning disabilities. There is another vulnerable group that I would like to draw attention to. The Minister told me in his extremely helpful answer to my Written Question: "““The Government are developing statutory guidance … to support health and well-being boards in undertaking joint strategic needs assessments … including the need to take full account of the needs of vulnerable groups””.—[Official Report, 17/10/11; col. WA 16.]" This is excellent. Will this be published for consultation and, if so, when? Commissioning boards also need guidance and I cannot see why, if it is statutory guidance, it is not in the Bill? There is one further reason why it should be. I shall briefly cite one of my colleagues who works with Gypsies and Travellers. She points out that currently, most local authorities and PCTs take their data about the ethnic breakdown of their population from health records. We know that not only are Travellers not included as a category in many of these data collecting tools, but many Gypsies and Travellers do not want to disclose their ethnicity for fear of discrimination, so they are wholly underestimated and consequently, based on the inadequate data they have, PCTs and local authorities do not see the need to do a thorough needs assessment. That is why there has to be an explicit provision in the Bill, so that authorities will look for the information. It is not going to be there to hand; they will have to look for it. Guidance is essential if we are to have the full picture.