Tag Archives: care bill

Norman Lamb MP, Baroness Liz Barker and Paul Burstow write…Care Bill builds better, stronger, more liberal care system

Care in the home Some rights reserved by British Red CrossLast week, historic legislation on social care was debated for the final time in the Commons. It has been an exhaustive – and at times exhausting – process, and one of the most inclusive and consultative pieces of legislation ever. We worked with people across the political spectrum to get this right – as ever, a true Lib Dem hallmark.

Starting back in 2010 when Paul Burstow in the Department of Health published a new vision for social care, we have at every stage worked to engage, reach out, and listen to as many stakeholders as possible.

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Paul Burstow MP writes…Government makes concessions on Care Bill

nhs sign lrgOver the last week I have been working with 38 degrees who ran a strong campaign raising concerns about a key clause in the Care Bill that made changes to the way in which a hospital in serious financial or clinical trouble would be handled in the NHS.

Trust special administration (TSA) as it is known, was introduced by Labour in 2009.  It is a blunt process that should only ever be used in exceptional circumstances of financial or clinical failure.

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Paul Burstow MP writes…My two suggestions to improve the Care Bill

Knowing that you will receive the best care available is of critical importance to everyone who finds themselves needing support from social care services. This is why when I was Care Minister, I was passionate about making that a reality – and I still am. As Minister I published the Care Bill, overhauling decades of complex, arcane and out of date legislation to set out a social care system fit for the twenty first century.

The Care Bill, which I subsequently scrutinised as Chair of the Joint Committee on the Bill, is a piece of legislation I – and Liberal Democrats …

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Norman Lamb writes: Protecting people’s health and care data

In Government, as in opposition, Liberal Democrats have been staunch defenders of people’s right to privacy, campaigning against state intrusion into people’s private lives.  Our 2010 manifesto included commitments to scrap Identity Cards, block Home Office plans to snoop into people’s email and internet records, and remove innocent people from police DNA databases.  In Government, we have delivered: ID cards were stopped, the “snoopers’ charter” revived by Tories at the Home Office was killed off by Nick Clegg, and millions of people’s DNA records have been deleted from Police databases.

People have a fundamental right to expect personal information to be …

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Norman Lamb writes… A once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix our health and care system

In 1997 Tony Blair told the Labour Party conference “I don’t want brought up in a country where the only way pensioners can get long-term care is by selling their home.” And yet speaking to the Health Select Committee in 2010, in Labour’s final months in office, Andy Burnham said, “every member of the Cabinet believed social care to be an area that had not been properly reformed and was one of great unfairness”. In thirteen years of talk, and promises, Labour did nothing to fix our dysfunctional, and profoundly unfair, system of funding social care.

In …

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Baroness Judith Jolly writes… Welcome to our new Peers

We heard this morning of new members swelling our ranks on the red benches in the House of Lords.

It seems only yesterday since I arrived in January 2011, fully expecting to serve only five or maybe ten years before standing down for those elected to the Upper House. We now know that it is not to be (yet!) but it was not for want of trying.

If I were to give advice it would be to get involved in something you know something about and something you know nothing about but find interesting. Join some all-party groups. Challenge our government …

Posted in Op-eds and Parliament | Also tagged , , , and | 10 Comments
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