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Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. It is very important that National Health Service staff should not feel threatened. What has been the increase in prosecutions? In the past, the Royal College of Nursing has reported 116,000 violent incidents, of which less than 44 per cent were in mental hospitals. Although we expect a slightly higher incidence there, the majority did not occur there. Of that total, only 2 per cent of cases were prosecuted. Eighty per cent of cases were not followed up at all and only 2 per cent were prosecuted. Can the Minister explain more about the new body to which he has just referred; that is, the security management service? According to nurses, it is part of the Counter Fraud and Security Management Service. Is that a National Health Service body or is it a Home Office body?
Lord Warner: My Lords, I shall be delighted to tell the House about the national Counter Fraud and Security Management Service. It is one of the most successful bodies set up by the Government to counter fraud and better to protect NHS staff. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving me the opportunity to do a little commercial for the body. As we have discussed, it is a National Health Service body, and it has set up its own legal protection unit, which undertakes prosecutions. It made its first prosecution in September 2004. I can give the House a number of examples. It initiated the first anti-social behaviour order against a person who assaulted NHS staff; another person who assaulted staff received a three-year custodial sentence; and a father and son who attacked NHS staff in Newcastle were each sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. That shows the kind of action the service is taking. We shall be publishing the 2004–05 prosecution numbers in the not too distant future.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that there is a high incidence of assaults in accident and emergency units? In a recent debate on assaults on public servants, I suggested to him that one way forward might be to employ more security guards and that we could fund that by asking licensees who were keeping their pubs and clubs open late at night to pay a levy towards it. My noble friend agreed to explore that possibility; I wonder what the outcome was.
Lord Warner: My Lords, the new NHS security management service has ensured that each NHS health body has an executive director who is responsible for
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security management. There are increasing numbers of local security management specialists, who work in all the high risk areas—such as mental health, learning disabilities, ambulance services and A&E—to help to protect staff and to make them more aware. Since April 2004 we have launched the largest ever training programme for the NHS to equip 750,000 front-line NHS staff with the necessary skills to identify potentially violent situations and to prevent them escalating.
Lord Renton: My Lords, although it is clear from the Minister's answers that the Government have a record of the people involved, can the Minister tell the House whether they are mostly men or women? Is it native British who do it or people imported who do it? What kind of people are they who commit these attacks?
Lord Warner: My Lords, they are people whose behaviour is unacceptable in every way, irrespective of their backgrounds.
Baroness Barker: My Lords, does the department have any data on the correlation between the incidence of attacks and level of staffing in the NHS, particularly at night time? Does the department have plans to ensure that the infra-red pin-point alarm system for NHS staff is made available in departments other than A&E departments?
Lord Warner: My Lords, it is down to local security staff to make arrangements for their trust, bearing in mind their particular circumstances. However, pilot work has been done, particularly on lone workers in the NHS who are especially vulnerable. We have issued guidance on better protection for those staff, along with an evaluation of the technology called the Identicom device, aimed at providing additional protection for lone or isolated workers, which can be a problem, as the noble Baroness indicated.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: My Lords, will the Minister clarify whether the Department of Health intends to standardise the definition of assault so that data are collected across the NHS in a standardised way? Will he also clarify whether there will be positive recommendations to all trusts that A&E waiting departments should have security staff, given that the vast majority of attacks are alcohol-related or related to psychiatric patients, for whom the only place of safety, when they become out of control, is an A&E department at night?
Lord Warner: My Lords, the security management service has standardised and improved the way in which information is collected. We should await the publication of the 2004–05 data on the number of assaults and prosecutions as they will, for the first time, have been collected in a much more consistent way, with regard to the definitions used. They will show that there
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are far fewer serious physical assaults than was thought and that although there are serious issues in the NHS, it is still, for the most part, a safe place to work for most staff.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate: My Lords, have the Government considered making attacks on public servants an aggravating factor, thereby attracting a tougher sentence?
Lord Warner: My Lords, I do not think that the Government have any plans in this area.
Aircraft Carriers
2.52 pm
Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the latest situation with regard to their commitment to construct two new aircraft carriers and to the aircraft to form their airwings.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Drayson): My Lords, the two future aircraft carriers, known as CVF, will operate the Joint Strike Fighter as their primary offensive aircraft. Together they will provide the backbone of a potent carrier strike capability.
The CVF project is in the assessment phase. We are participating in the JSF demonstration phase. We remain fully committed to these key projects and to delivering this battle-winning capability to our Armed Forces within the target time-frame of 2012 to 2015.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. However, weekend reports, which have not been denied, refer to an £18 billion shortfall in procurement funding over the next decade. Are the carriers now to be reduced in size because the MoD has overspent its budget? Will the delivery date be pushed back? Are the numbers of JSFs to be cut from 150 to only 100?
Lord Drayson: My Lords, the answer is no. Our future equipment plan over the next 10 years sees an investment of more than £68 billion, which represents the largest sustained increase in defence for 20 years. We are currently building eight major warships, and we do not see a requirement to make changes at this time to the CVF programme.
Lord Garden: My Lords, it is now seven years since the Government first announced that they were to procure the two large carriers, and much has changed in terms of the military tasks over that period. Does the Minister agree with the Defence Committee report on future capabilities published on 3 March, when it said,
"there might have been an argument for reconsidering whether two large carriers still best reflected the Armed Forces needs"?
Lord Drayson: My Lords, when one looks at the length of time that has been taken in the design and
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assessment phase for the carrier project and compares that with other projects on carriers in this country and abroad, it is comparable. When taking into account the complexity of this programme, I think that it is appropriate. There is no plan to make changes as set out. The specification is for two carriers; two carriers it remains.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, further to the last question, have any tenders for contract been sent out? If not, when will they be sent out and will they be sent out to British enterprises?
Lord Drayson: My Lords, we are in the design and assessment phase for these carriers. Contracts have been set out for the work to be done to ensure that the design of the carriers is optimum. When we have confidence that the design is right and that the contracts are correct such that we can have confidence in terms of the risks of building these quite enormous ships, then the contracts will be placed. Government policy on UK warships is that they are built in the United Kingdom.
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