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Reform of Social Care

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Suffolk Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust and the immediate past chairman of Help the Hospices. I agree with my noble friend Lady Oppenheim-Barnes. Indeed, this has been a running sore throughout my entire political lifetime since I was first elected as an MP in 1974. The right metaphor now might be a ticking time bomb in one of those James Bond films getting quite close to where it actually goes off, or does not quite. This is potentially seriously, socially divisive and difficult, so I hugely welcome both the report and the tone that has been adopted by those on the two Front Benches. It is essential that we should seek political consensus, otherwise there will be big trouble for all of us. Lastly, and more specifically, I come to my question: does my noble friend accept that there are also health implications in the demographics as well as social care implications? A growing number of people are presenting with mental illness problems—dementia, in particular—at mental health trusts, and indeed in acute trusts in the A&E departments, with a knock-on effect on requests for assistance from mental health trusts and their clinicians. There is a serious need for health resources to be directed towards some aspects of this problem as well as to a solution to social care problems. I hope that my noble friend will take that on board.