division_name: Care for the Elderly
motion: <p>
   I beg to move,
  <p> 
   
    That this House welcomes the NHS Plan's commitment to a care system founded on the principles of equity and fairness; regrets that the Plan discriminates against older people with chronic and long-term illness by continuing to means-test them for their own care; believes that the Plan creates a fault-line between nursing and personal care; further believes that the Plan fails even to provide nursing care free on the basis of need, limiting the concession to registered nurse time; and calls on the Government to implement the Royal Commission's proposals for personal and nursing care to be provided on the basis of a person's assessed need instead of means.
  <p>
   I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  <p> 
   
    "welcomes the NHS Plan's commitments to a care system founded on the principles of equity and fairness; welcomes the measures the Government has announced to reform the funding of long term care and to invest in new health and social care services for older people; notes that this matches the extra spending on long term care recommended by the Royal Commission; believes that the implementation of free nursing care on the basis of need and not ability to pay will bring an end to a major injustice affecting tens of thousands of older people in nursing homes; welcomes the new investment announced in the NHS Plan of &#163;900 million annually by 2003-04 in new intermediate care services for older people; supports the priority the Government has rightly attached to improving front line services for older people; and calls on the Liberal Democrats to set out what services they would cut in order to fund their proposals."
  <p>Question put,  That the original words stand part of the Question:--
  <p>The House divided:  Ayes 41, Noes 271.
  