Urgent and Emergency Care Review

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Mr Speaker, I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what complacency is: it is refusing to have a public inquiry into Mid Staffs, where staff in A and E departments were bullied and harassed when they tried to speak out. He did not think it was worth having a public inquiry into the poor care that his Government swept under the carpet and which we are doing something about. There is one figure that he refused to mention: the A and E performance figures published last week of 96.4%—hitting the target, higher than the previous week, higher than this time last year. That sums it up: in a good week he wants to run down the performance of hard-working staff whereas this Government are backing them.

Why are we having an A and E review? It is to clear up the mess and confusion caused by 13 years of Labour mismanagement of our emergency services. The right hon. Gentleman talks about walk-in centres. Why were they introduced? Because of the disastrous mistake over the GP contract. The brave thing for his Government to have done would have been to admit they got that wrong and reverse it, but they did not. They introduced a whole new raft of services, which confused the public: A and E, walk-in centres, GP surgeries, telephone helplines. Tomorrow we will sort out those problems. Yes there are difficult decisions, but they are decisions his Government ducked and left the public exposed as a result.

Before the right hon. Gentleman runs down our A and E services, let me just gently remind him that he talked about a recruitment crisis, but we have 300 more A and E consultants than when he was Health Secretary, we have nearly 2,000 more people—[Interruption.] I am sorry that this is difficult for those on the Opposition Front Bench to listen to. We have nearly 2,000 more people being seen within four hours every single day than when the right hon. Gentleman was Health Secretary —that is some 700,000 more people every year. We have more hospital doctors, more hospital nurses, more treatments and fewer long waits than when he was Health Secretary, and he should celebrate that improvement in our NHS’s performance, instead of trying to run down the people on the front line.

I will tell the right hon. Gentleman something else we are doing. We are tackling the long-term causes of pressure in A and E that his Government absolutely failed to do: not just the GP contract but also the integration of the health and social care system, the lack of which means that hospitals are not able to discharge people from their beds on time, causing huge pressure. Today, the shadow Health Secretary has shown his true colours. The man whose Government made so many wrong decisions about A and E is exposed as trying to make political capital while this Government sort out his mess.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

How many extra lives does my right hon. Friend expect to save through consolidating the A and E facilities in London, by having a smaller number of hospitals with more doctors? Does he expect to replicate that across England?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The changes we announced in north-west London will save hundreds of lives, by using principles that we will hear more of from Sir Bruce tomorrow. In particular, we are putting 800 extra people into out-of-hospital care, which will help the frail elderly, many of whom should never go to A and E—it is the most confusing place that someone with advanced dementia can go. If we can treat them at home, it is better for them and for our hard-working A and E departments.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

I am not sure whether the hon. Lady is referring to the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services report that was published recently. It is important to look at that report in context and not misinterpret the figures. The report shows that spending has been roughly flat in social care, and the last survey also shows that councils are expecting a small increase in expenditure on social care next year. The 20% or £2.7 billion that is often touted by the Opposition in fact represents savings that councils have made through efficiencies, and that money is obviously being reinvested in front-line care.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give an indication of the long-term cost savings of integrating health and social care, as against the short-term cost of making the changes?

[Dr Poulter]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the fact that the figures show that last year alone 50,000 bed days that would otherwise have been wasted were saved by investing in social care and implementing the service transformation that we all require. However, this is about making all NHS and social care budgets go further, and recognising that if we are to improve the care of older people, particularly frail elderly people, we have to invest in more community prevention and community-based care, which is what this Government are doing.

Hospital Mortality Rates

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We welcome and accept the Francis report’s recommendations on safe staffing and we recognise that that involves having doctors. We recognise and are pleased that our protection of the NHS budget means that there are 6,000 more doctors than when the hon. Gentleman’s Government were in power. If he looks at what is happening in his own Wales, he might find that there are a few lessons that the NHS in Wales could learn.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Sadly, the problems at George Eliot hospital go back well over a decade, so these special measures will be very welcome, but is not one of my right hon. Friend’s fundamental problems dealing with a culture of secrecy, where in the past a board with a problem would talk to a strategic health authority board and nobody would know what was going on? Is not sunlight the best disinfectant?

[Mr Hunt]

It is, absolutely. That is the big change. My hon. Friend speaks wisely. That is the big change that we have to make in our NHS. When there is failure, we must be open about it. It has to be public—we have to keep the public in the picture, because that is the best way of putting pressure on the system and on the politicians to make sure that they sort it out. That is not what happened before; it is going to happen now.

Herbal Medicine (Regulation)

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity in this debate to raise the issue of herbal medicine with my hon. Friend the Minister. The issue has been on the agenda for many years, and I hope that by the end of the debate we can shed light on where we are going. I look forward to my hon. Friend’s remarks.

On Friday, I was at the Royal Society summer science exhibition. The Royal Society is our oldest and, some would say, most distinguished scientific society. Its fundamental purpose is to promote and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity. The Royal Society has played a part in some of the most fundamental, significant and life-changing discoveries in scientific history, and it continues to make outstanding contributions to science in many research areas. I will refer to what I saw at the exhibition and to what it has to say to us about herbal medicine generally.

If I may say in passing, Mr Speaker might like to visit the Royal Society because it has a wonderful gold mace that is the mirror image of the Mace that is carried into the Chamber. The mace was a present to the Royal Society from Charles II. Among the Royal Society’s former presidents are Sir Christopher Wren and Edmond Halley. The Royal Society has a wonderful line and body of knowledge, so I set great store by it. We must take note when the Royal Society seriously considers herbal medicine and related methods of delivery.

I was particularly struck by the Royal Society partnership grant project with Boroughbridge high school in Harrogate under the direction of Colin Inglis, the school’s biology tutor, and overseen by Professor Kerr, the consultant microbiologist at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust. The project looked at several simple plants and herbs available in our gardens, from greengrocers and from garden centres to see what their impact could be on E. coli and other bugs—I will focus on E. coli. Working over not a very long period of time, the project found that E. coli growth is inhibited by the use of thyme, lavender and geranium set in essential oils. They said that they were able to identify the minimum inhibitory concentration of those oils derived from herbs and plants—the lowest concentration of essential oil that inhibits the growth of E. coli. When I discussed that with the directing staff, they said that the next step would be to determine the concentration that would kill E. coli—the minimum bactericidal concentration. That simple project in a school in Harrogate has huge ramifications, because it shows how easily-found common herbs and plants can be used in the furtherance of medicine.

In the evening at the Royal Society there was a panel discussion on “Nature’s Marvellous Medicine,” and those addressing the audience were not ill-informed: Professor Dianna Bowles, emeritus professor in the department of biology at York university; Professor Roderick Flower, professor of biochemical pharmacology at the William Harvey research institute; and Professor Monique Simmonds, director of the Kew innovation unit, where she studies the chemistry of plants and fungi—of course, Kew Gardens is currently classifying all British herbs. They are not ill-informed people, and they were speaking about what could be done with herbs and plants.

The chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, recently said that resistance to antibiotics risks health “catastrophe” that would rank with terrorism and climate change. She said that Britain’s health system could slip back by 200 years unless the “catastrophic threat” of antibiotic resistance was successfully tackled. The Select Committee on Science and Technology, of which I am a member, might address that in this Parliament. Dame Sally Davies said:

“This is a growing problem, and if we don’t get it right, we will find ourselves in a health system not dissimilar from the early 19th century.”

Although hospital infections from bugs such as MRSA are greatly reduced, they are being replaced by infections with other bacteria. Antibiotic use is rising, not least in agriculture, and resistance is steadily growing in fish and farm animals—I remember raising the matter in this House 20 years ago or more—and there are problems with farmers, particularly in the third world, feeding antibiotics to chickens. I said then that such use could have catastrophic consequences, and now we know that, in some parts of the world, cattle have been fed antibiotics as a prophylactic, so it is no wonder that the new chief medical officer is focusing on that.

It is perhaps also significant that Professor Christopher Thomas, the professor of molecular genetics at the university of Birmingham, added to Dame Sally’s remarks:

“We need new ways to kill resistant bacteria or reduce their carriage of resistance genes. Novel approaches that might have appeared unrealistic a few years ago need to be explored.”

I suggest that one of those areas that needs to be explored is better use of herbs and plants in medicine. In a sense, and this is not an original phrase, we need to go back to the future to find those solutions. If I have anything further to say about Dame Sally’s release, it is that it does not provide any solution other than to suggest that we need to go for more antibiotics. The problem is that some doctors are saying that no antibiotics will work in 20 years’ time. The Government have a catastrophe management team—that is not the official title—and I think that issue should be added to its list.

Today, we are not specifically debating common plants that are available as foods or in the garden. Such plants are covered by different regulations. What we are debating is the future of herbal medicine in this country. If I may, I will set out the stall on what has happened in recent years. We have to go back to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report of 2000 that considered herbal medicine and other medicines that are not currently used in mainstream health care. The written evidence from the Department of Health stated:

“There is scope for the larger professions to follow the osteopaths and chiropractors in gaining statutory self-regulation, and this would undoubtedly serve their professions well.”

I served in the Committee stages of the Osteopaths Act 1993 and the Chiropractors Act 1994, and the difference that statutory regulation has made to those professions in providing safe services for patients and giving assurance to doctors such as the Minister is extraordinary. They came in from the cold.

The Government then identified acupuncture and herbal medicine as specific therapies for which they wanted to achieve statutory regulation. I shall not dwell on acupuncture, as we must focus on herbal medicine. In her evidence to the Lords Science and Technology Committee inquiry, the then Under-Secretary of State for public health, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said:

“I think we would support their moves towards statutory regulation…We would strongly encourage them to continue the process towards proper self-regulation and statutory regulation as well…We do think that in the area of acupuncture and herbal medicine it is perhaps more important than in other areas.”

In its report, the Committee said:

“It is our opinion that acupuncture and herbal medicine are the two therapies which are at a stage where it would be of benefit to them and their patients if the practitioners strive for statutory regulation under the Health Act 1999,”

which is an enabling Act that, if I remember correctly, provides for different disciplines to come in via statutory instrument,

“and we recommend that they should do so.”

Regulation was recommended because those herbal professionals met the agreed criteria for statutory regulation that the Lords had come up with. There was a risk to the public through poor practice, and they had a voluntary regulation system and a credible evidence base. Regulation would ensure that appropriate training was established, resulting in competent practitioners with an understanding of the evidence base for their therapy along with an appreciation of the limitations of the treatments that they could provide. Safe practitioners would understand when to refer. Effective regulation would therefore seek to safeguard the public from incompetent practitioners and identify practitioners suitably qualified to use a range of potent herbal remedies not appropriate for over-the-counter sale. There are some powerful remedies.

The next stage in the saga is the European Union’s intervention. However, I want to make one point at the outset before we consider European directives. The proposal for statutory legislation pre-dates all the arguments about European directives, such as the traditional herbal medicinal products directive and others. The policy had broad cross-party support, and the distinguished Lords Committee, which included members such as Lord Walton of Detchant and Lord Baldwin, had proposed it. Distinguished men came up with that proposal. We were going down that route anyway.

Then the European Union became involved, with directives. We must address the directives, but we are not dealing only with them; we are dealing with a policy that was already in train. The objective of proper regulation had been there before the European Union directive 2001/83/EC, amended by directive 2004/24/EC, which said:

“A Member State may, in accordance with legislation in force and to fulfil special needs, exclude from the provisions of this Directive medicinal products supplied in response to a bona fide unsolicited order, formulated in accordance with the specifications of an authorised health-care professional”—

a key phrase—

“and for use by an individual patient under his direct personal responsibility”.

That meant that herbal practitioners would have to be classed as authorised health care practitioners in order to be able to continue using their herbal products.

In January 2002, the Department of Health, along with the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health and the European Herbal and Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association established the herbal medicine regulatory working group—HMRWG. The group and subsequent groups were chaired by Professor Mike Pitillo, a well-respected man whom I knew and who devoted many years of his life to the issue. His efforts were and are still appreciated by all who knew him; sadly, Mike died in February 2010. God bless him; he put so much into the issue on behalf of the community. The working group’s remit was to make recommendations on the regulation of herbal medicine practitioners and the reform of section 12(1) of the Medicines Act 1968. In 2003, the group published its report, “Recommendations on the Regulation of Herbal Practitioners in the UK”.

In effect, the group’s work on the issue of possible reforms to the regime of unlicensed herbal medicines supplied under section 12 represented the first stage in the exploration process envisaged by the Government. It needed to be seen as distinct from but complementary to the wider European negotiations on the then proposed directive on traditional herbal medicinal products, which related to industrially produced traditional herbal remedies sold over the counter directly to the public.

Working in parallel to the group was the acupuncture regulatory working group, which I need not discuss. The HMRWG concluded that the two professions should be regulated together, thereby addressing the high practitioner costs of running two separate registers. The Department of Health ran a consultation on regulation of the two professions, published in 2004 as “Regulation of Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture: Proposals for Statutory Regulation”. The results of the consultation were published in February 2005 as “Statutory Regulation of Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture: Report on the Consultation”.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency ran a simultaneous consultation on section 12(1) reform—MLX 299, “Proposals for the Reform of the Regulation of Unlicensed Herbal Remedies in the United Kingdom Made Up to Meet the Needs of Individual Patients”—and published its results in January 2005. In 2005, if colleagues recall, we had a general election. There were delays at the Department, unsurprisingly, and pending developments in health care regulation as part of the Foster review stalled further work for nearly a year.

However, in early 2006, the Government set up the steering group on the regulation of acupuncture, herbal medicine and traditional Chinese medicine in order to consider how to proceed with the regulation of those professions. That involved yet another consultation process. On 12 June 2008, the steering group’s report was presented to the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). On 16 June, the steering group, chaired by the late Professor Pitillo, held a press conference at the King’s Fund to report on the document.

All the reports and consultations found massively in favour of herbal medicines generally and statutory regulation in particular. After that tortuous process, they arrived at that conclusion.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I am enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech immensely. No one else in the House knows as much about herbal medicine as he does. He speaks for the nation. In its survey, the MHRA found that as many as 3 million people had consulted a practitioner of Chinese herbal medicine, and as many as 25 million had bought herbal medicines over the counter during the previous two years of its survey.

[David Tredinnick]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is ever supportive. He has tabled questions and acted for his constituents on this issue, as he always does. He is right. Three quarters of the population of the United Kingdom have used traditional Chinese medicine, herbal medicine, phytotherapy or one of the other disciplines sometimes classed as complementary. There is a huge swell of people out there who want such medicines. Going back to Dame Sally’s remarks, people are now frightened of using antibiotics; they are worried about overuse and that, when they really want them, they might not be effective. We have a crisis not only of effectiveness but of confidence. People who tend to go down the herbal medicine route have a lot of confidence, however, because they are dealing with nature and natural products that have been used over the years. Properly administered, those products do not have side effects and they are not prone to becoming ineffective.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman, who is knowledgeable on the subject. Would it be helpful if he outlined what he feels might happen if the Government do not do what they said that they would do and what we all want to see happen on regulation?

[David Tredinnick]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, with whom I discussed the debate earlier, and I will be coming on to the options available to the Minister. In fairness to him, I know that he has been focused on the matter, with his colleague in the Lords, the noble Earl Howe, a distinguished Minister. However, before I look at the solutions and some of the obstructions and problems—why we are not getting a solution—I will first go through where the Government are now.

On 16 February 2011, the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), made a written statement on the regulation of herbal medicine. Subject to parliamentary procedures, he aimed to have legislation in place by 2012—importantly, when the European law kicked in—and he stated:

“When the European Directive 2004/24/EC takes full effect in April 2011 it will no longer be legal for herbal practitioners in the UK to source unlicensed manufactured herbal medicines for their patients. This Government wish to ensure that the public can continue to have access to these products.

In order to achieve this, while at the same time complying with EU law, some form of statutory regulation will be necessary and I have therefore decided to ask the Health Professions Council”—

the strong regulatory body—

“to establish a statutory register for practitioners supplying unlicensed herbal medicines.”—[Official Report, 16 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 84WS.]

Progress, however, has been slow.

Before I get to the solutions, as prompted by the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), let me emphasise that, although a Health Minister is responding to the debate, we should not be under any illusion that only the Department of Health is affected. If we do not got things right, we will see a large number of small businesses folding, because the whole supply chain of herbal medicine will collapse. That is extremely unsatisfactory.

Furthermore—I will not stray into this territory for long, Mr Bone, in case you are thinking of calling me to order—when the Science and Technology Committee went to Harwell to look at the European Space Agency, at its work on satellites and at what we are doing with the global positioning system in Europe, we looked at the Catapult centre, which is an organisation backed with hard cash by the Government to drive science forward. That is fine, and I asked them whether it was picking winners, but while I was listening in the state-of-the-art space centre, I was thinking, “But what about the small businesses we already have?” What will we do about the people who are providing a service to the community in health care? What will we do with them if their livelihoods are under threat?

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend’s excellent speech has come to the nub of what could be a huge crisis. If statutory regulation fails to go ahead, a wide range of herbal medicines supplied by practitioners to their patients will be lost. The directive has already stopped practitioners prescribing herbal medicines made by manufacturers and herbal suppliers for prescriptions to individual patients. Potentially, thousands of small and medium-sized herbal enterprises could go out of business.

[David Tredinnick]

My hon. Friend illustrates the point. The European directive on traditional herbal medicinal products now prevents third-party manufactured herbal medicines being prescribed to patients by practitioners, as well as individualised herbal medicines prescribed by practitioners and manufactured by a third party. One of the communities in the herbal medicine diaspora most affected is that of traditional Chinese medical practitioners. The directive has already had a negative impact on the availability of Chinese herbal medicine in the UK and Europe. The problem lies in the fact that the directive stipulated that, to prove traditional usage, there must be a 30-year history of usage, of which 15 years must be in the European Union. That can be difficult, because many Chinese medicines have been used for thousands of years in China—Chinese medicine goes back 3,000 years at least—but not in the European Union or the UK.

The directive was also conceived before we had the vast opening up of trade with China. Probably, no one envisaged what was going to happen. I will touch on that, because I was speaking to the Foreign Secretary about it last week. We now have a situation in which, once stocks of some Chinese medicines run out, it will not be possible to buy many of the formulations currently available.

[Kate Hoey]

Is this another example of the European Union interfering in all sorts of areas about which our own country should be able to make up its mind? Is this not another opportunity to say that we need to get some powers back from the European Union or leave it altogether?

--- Later in debate ---

[David Tredinnick]

The hon. Lady is right. We all saw the headlines in the Sunday papers, and the coalition Government are intending to do just that. I hope that we can get some powers back. One of the solutions that I will propose—I know that you have an impartial role as Chair, Mr Bone, but I have heard mention of the European Union pass your lips in the past—may not even involve the European Union.

To finish with the Chinese problem, we are dealing with an international issue. We are trying to develop trade with China and have just opened a lot of trade missions there—the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Foreign Secretary are backing such attempts—and we see it as a great area, but the Chinese are not happy about the idea that they have western medicine in their country, but we do not make full use of Chinese medicine over here. I have spoken to people about that. The idea that we will have a sweeping of the shelves of Chinese medicine will not play well in the international domain. We have had some controversial issues—the Government’s approach to the Dalai Lama was not overwhelmingly well received by some people in China, although many in this country support what has happened over there. If the Foreign Secretary has not yet been in touch with the Minister, he might well do so, because our international position with China is affected.

Recently, somehow, we have got to an impasse. I have had some helpful conversations, but there have been all sorts of suspicious signals and it is no secret that some practitioners have found it hard to get to the Department; some of the herbal medicine governing bodies have complained that they have not had easy access. Things do not feel quite normal, because the flow of information has not been what we might have expected. I have been told that the problem that stalled the process occurred in Poland.

In short, the European Court of Justice ruled that Poland was importing and selling unapproved drugs. It ruled against the Poles. Apparently, that has brought everything to a grinding halt in the UK. I sent the Minister a copy of the opinion that I received from the European Herbal and Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association, which was provided by David Reissner, a partner with Charles Russell lawyers and an acknowledged expert in pharmacy and health registration. There is no better person to give an opinion. In his letter he says:

“In my view the Poland case was primarily about whether financial considerations could be used as a justification for permitting the use of medicines that do not have a market authorisation. My conclusion is that the statutory regulation of herbal practitioners is still compatible with the ability by such practitioners to be authorised health-care professionals”—

that is a key phrase—

“who can order specials for individual patient use, relying on the exemption in Article 5.1 of EC Directive 2001/83.”

He continues:

“I also confirm that it is my opinion that statutory regulation is the only way to ensure that herbal practitioners are considered to be authorised health-care professionals within the meaning of Article 5.1 of the Directive.”

[Mr Hollobone]

To ensure that I understand, is my hon. Friend saying that Poland has effectively been caught out misusing the special needs provision in article 5.1, whereas the Department of Health proposed a perfectly legitimate scheme under the same article but has been put into a state of paralysis by the European Commission’s judgment?

[David Tredinnick]

That is pretty much right. The fact is that the Poles were trying to get round the system, were caught out and European law was applied effectively, but we are not in the same situation. I am sure the Minister has looked at the matter carefully, so will he please tell us his view? As far as I can see, there is absolutely no justification for using Poland and that view is widely held in the Community.

The key reason why the issue has got stuck has nothing to do with health care but is to do with the turf war and vested interests. I suspect that there are people in the medical establishment who do not want statutory regulation because they think it would interfere with the status of their own profession. When I talked to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills about this, there seemed to be some confusion because it thinks that we might be going down a route of more regulation unnecessarily, but, sine qua non, there will be no herbal sector if we do not do something about it. Not doing something is not an option. We cannot just leave the matter as it is. I am pretty sure that vested interests in the medical establishment are trying to block this.

I said in the House recently that I had had a chance meeting with Lord Wilson of Tillyorn who was the last but one Governor of Hong Kong and introduced statutory regulation of herbal medicine there. I asked him what the objectives had been and whether he had problems with the medical establishment, and he said that he did. There are two issues: health care and vested interests. That is worrying because those vested interests may be very powerful. Returning to what Dame Sally, the chief medical officer, said and what I learned at the Royal Society last Friday, I ask those vested interests to back off because antibiotics are not working. We need to find something else and herbal medicine is one way forward. It has been suggested that there would be a legal challenge, presumably by people who are generally hostile to herbal medicine and increasingly misguided and misinformed. The Royal Society is the premier scientific body in this country, and the game is changing.

[Mr Hollobone]

Herbal medicine is extremely cost-effective and could help the country to tackle the ever-rising drugs bill in the national health service.

[David Tredinnick]

I have seen evidence in Europe that when doctors combine the two, the allopathic drugs bill can be reduced because herbs tend to be less expensive. That may worry manufacturers, and it has long been said that they are actively campaigning against this. They would be wise to accept that working with natural medicine is good for sales of conventional medicine.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Order. I apologise that I forgot to say at the beginning that I intend to start the wind-ups no later than 10.40, and that two Members have written to me asking to participate in the debate.

[David Tredinnick]

You are ever courteous, Mr Bone, and I will not detain the Chamber much longer. I am acutely aware of not taking up other people’s time.

The Minister has three options. The Health Practitioners Council was the original idea. The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care oversees the regulatory work of other organisations but is not as robust. A special licensing system for practitioner-prescribed products is a possibility, provided they are not traded between member states, and that may be a way out of the problem. We must find a solution, or there will be a disaster in the long term. I have used Chinese herbs and herbal medicine for many years, and I find them extremely safe and effective. I want people in this country to be able to use herbs. The key objective for the Minister is to ensure that the maximum number of products is available safely through regulated practitioners.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Hoey]

The hon. Gentleman puts it very well. That is what happens, not only in the pharmaceutical industry, but with doctors, who have a very narrow view of what health is, in my opinion. That makes it all the more important that we ensure that alternative medicines are available. It is great that we have an heir to the throne who believes that some of this is really important. I wish that the Department would listen to His Royal Highness Prince Charles, because some of what he says on the matter is absolutely right.

The other issue that I want to raise is about the Health and Care Professions Council, which I think the Minister has overall responsibility for. It is based in my constituency and does a brilliant job. However, recently, it seems as though the Department’s general view on what it does and how it works has changed. We have been trying to get sports therapists registered for a very long time. Everyone agrees that that should happen. The HCPC, which is meant to be the body that gives advice, has gone and said, “This must be registered. We must do this.” Sport England wants it to happen, as does anybody involved in sport; yet somewhere in the Department, there is a block. I actually do not think that it is Ministers; I think that it is officials. Officials do not care who is in government; they do what they want to do; and they will continue to pull a line. It seems as though the Minister or the new Secretary of State could be dangerously close to heeding advice from officials to drop the whole thing. I worry very much about that.

[David Tredinnick]

When I was working on my speech for today, I looked at the lists of those who are regulated by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care and the Health and Care Professions Council and I could not for the life of me work out why some were on one list and some on the other. There is another debate to be had on that issue.

[Kate Hoey]

I hope that the Minister will give us some clarification on that.

Many campaign groups, including Consumers for Health Choice, are very clear that they want the Secretary of State and the other Ministers to ignore the siren call from officials and fulfil their promises. This is very simple. When the register was announced back in February 2011, it was warmly welcomed by virtually everyone. Consumers were pleased that the register allowed an exception for herbal practitioners from the traditional herbal medicinal products directive—an EU law that became fully applicable in April 2011 and would have meant the banning of all unregistered herbal medicinal products. People will remember the campaign that was held across the country. All MPs got many letters of protest from constituents and from herbal shops and health shops. At the time, the position was that virtually all herbal medicinal products would have been banned. A register would have allowed practitioners to access unlicensed products, thus preserving choice in relation to safe and effective products for thousands of consumers. We all want people to be safe, but that has to be within the broad band of common sense and experience, not because a particular official decides that they do not like a product.

The industry was very pleased. Obviously, the practitioners were delighted that they could still use products that they had used for many years and would not see their consumers drift away, disappointed by a restriction stopping them buying things. All the manufacturers and retailers were pleased for the same reason. It was a win-win situation, so where is the register? The reality is that, because campaigners were reassured by the Government’s words—perhaps people should have been more cynical about the promises of a Government of any sort; that is why there is such a disconnect between the public and politicians—we relaxed the pressure to introduce the register. Of course, the Government got distracted by the huge and messy Health and Social Care Bill and we lost the then Secretary of State. That is where we are now.

I am very concerned and I want to hear the Minister give us an assurance today that this proposal has not been dropped, that the officials are not getting their way and that the register will be introduced as quickly as possible, so that everyone can exercise choice about what they use—choice about their health and how they treat their body—in a way that is not dominated by directives from the European Union.

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[Dr Poulter]

Indeed, Mr Bone, as you say, you have no views on anything when you are impartially chairing the debate, but I am sure you pay keen interest to the topics raised, in your position as Chair and otherwise.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) for securing the debate, which I am sure is of interest to the consumers and practitioners who use herbal medicines, as well as to the many Members who attended the debate today. None of us disagree with the principles articulated here—we can all sign up to them—but good government is about working through the practicalities of proposals to ensure that they become good laws, as I will discuss later.

There have been many good and worthy contributions to the debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) showed his strong support for herbal practitioners in his constituency, and he was right to say that things in Government do not happen in a flash but have to be properly thought through. I want to reassure him that some of the products he mentioned—he talked about the benefits of vitamin E, for example—are freely available from herbal practitioners, and indeed from pharmacists and other places.

There were other strong contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), who is no longer in his seat, and the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey). The hon. Lady made her case eloquently, and I would be happy to meet with her at a later date to discuss sports therapists further, but I would not wish to intrude on Mr Bone’s patience by talking about the issue today and I hope she will forgive me for that.

I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth for his principled and long-standing support for herbal practitioners and his interest in alternative therapies, homeopathy and many other such issues. Today he has demonstrated his extensive knowledge of the topic under debate, and of alternative therapies in general. I am sure I am right in saying that he is the most informed Member of Parliament on many of these issues, and it is a great tribute to him that he has secured the debate today. I am sure that herbal practitioners and alternative therapists would wish to pay tribute to his great work and his advocacy on their behalf, and on behalf of his constituents.

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the chief medical officer’s challenge about the future of antibiotics, but we can make a clear distinction between those remarks and the subject of today’s debate. I am sure that the chief medical officer would not wish her remarks to be associated with a call for a greater use of herbal medicine—that was clearly not outlined in her paper. Although it is important that we always consider ways—via traditional medical routes or otherwise—of improving people’s health and providing the right therapies, the paper clearly laid out the long-standing challenges as being about antibiotic resistance, and it would be wrong, therefore, to allow the two issues to be confused.

By way of background, it is worth highlighting that although we support patient choice some herbal products have caused harm to consumers. There are a number of reasons why that might happen: the herb may be intrinsically toxic; the product may be accidentally or purposefully contaminated by harmful materials or heavy metals; people may choose herbal products for serious conditions when medicines with a solid evidence base would be more appropriate; and, if herbal products are taken together with conventional medicines, the interactions may be unpredictable. It is right, therefore, that we support the responsible use of medicines and have a licensing system.

Directive 2004/24/EC on traditional herbal medicinal products was introduced to harmonise the European Union internal market and remove barriers to free movement. The directive deals with products manufactured on an industrial scale, and makes all operators in the market comply with the same set of rules, facilitates free movement and ensures increased product safety, which, I am sure we agree, has a positive impact on patient safety and public health.

The question of whether herbalists and traditional Chinese medical practitioners should be statutorily regulated has been debated since the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee first reported on the matter in 2000. The hon. Member for Vauxhall and my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth outlined in their remarks that there is a lot of background and history. The previous Government grappled with the issues, and the current Government are also considering how to address and fulfil the commitments made by the previous Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley). Hon. Members will be aware that on 16 February 2011 the Government announced their intention to take forward the regulation of herbal medicine practitioners and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, specifically with regard to the use of third-party products in their practice.

Herbal products broadly fall into three categories. The first are the 310 herbal medicines that already have a marketing authorisation or a traditional herbal registration—in other words, a product licence. Those 310 medications are currently available for use and are effectively licensed. They are safe and widely used, and have undergone all relevant testing and checks. The second category, which is the one we are addressing today, covers products manufactured by a third party. Such products have been illegal since April 2011, following the implementation of the EU directive. The third category is products made up by a practitioner on their own premises following an individual consultation. Although such products are not affected by the directive, some of the herbal ingredients may be restricted by the Human Medicines Regulations 2012.

The previous Health Secretary’s concerns about the second category—products manufactured by a third party—prompted the decision to take forward statutory regulation of such products. The Government’s intention was to allow regulated herbal practitioners lawfully to source third-party manufactured herbal medicines, with appropriate safeguards in place to minimise the risks associated with the products, but since April 2011 the European directive has made it illegal for herbal practitioners in the UK to source such products for their patients.

Following the EU judgment in the case of the Commission v. Poland, which my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering mentioned, we have reassessed the risks. That case actually concerned unlicensed conventional medicines being used because they were cheaper, and although there is a clear distinction between those products and herbal remedies we had to look at what else the judgment said. It looked at the specials regime and, critically, it emphasised how strictly the regime must be applied. The judgment has a knock-on effect for what we propose for the use of herbal medicines manufactured by third parties without a licence, and it therefore needs careful consideration because there is a very high risk that we would be found to be in infraction of the European directive. We therefore need to consider further herbal products manufactured by a third party, and I will return to that point later.

The Government would, of course, like to find a way through the issue that supports responsible businesses and ensures public safety. Since the announcement in February 2011, the Department of Health has been working with officials in the devolved Administrations and with the Health and Care Professions Council to establish a statutory register for herbal practitioners. Alongside that, we have been considering a strengthened system for regulating medicinal products, to enable consumers to have access to a greater range of third-party manufactured herbal medicines. The process continues to be complex and lengthy, and it has been further complicated by the judgment in the European Union v. Poland case.

We acknowledge that there is strong support from some groups of herbal practitioners for the statutory regulation of the sector, but not all practitioners are in favour. I am sure, therefore, that hon. Members will appreciate that it would be irresponsible for the Government to undertake to alter the status of a group of workers without first ensuring that the policy and final decision offered an appropriate form of regulation and ensured that the proposals adequately addressed the risks posed to consumers of third-party manufactured herbal medicines.

As I stated earlier, complex issues are involved. We are discussing how to ensure that our proposals are fit for purpose and proportionate, and that they properly protect the public. I want to assure the hon. Member for Vauxhall that the matter has not been dropped. We absolutely support the principles outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire in his written ministerial statement to the House, and I fully appreciate that the delay is causing anxiety and concern to practitioners of herbal medicine and to consumers.

To ensure that we take forward the matter effectively, we want to bring together experts and interested parties from all sides of the debate to form a working group that will gather evidence and consider all the viable options in more detail, particularly because of the Polish case. I am aware of the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth about making timely progress, and I would therefore very much welcome his direct involvement in the working group to ensure that the interests of practitioners are properly looked after. We can meet when the House returns to work out how to take forward the proposal.

I hope that my commitment to setting up a working group will reassure my hon. Friend and all hon. Members that the Government are carefully considering this important issue. We recognise and agree with the principles, but the practicalities are such that we must have legislation that is fit for purpose—that does not trigger infraction proceedings from the European Union, but protects the public. That is vital in all health care matters, whether in relation to traditional medicines or to herbal medicines and alternative therapies. For that reason, we want to set up a working group and to work with my hon. Friend, and herbalists and others, to ensure that the legislation is fit for purpose. I look forward to discussing that with him in due course.

[David Tredinnick]

Before my hon. Friend sits down—I think that he was about to do so—may I thank him for his remarks? I am sure that knowing there is some progress is welcome, but I remind him that there have been many working groups in different guises over a long period, and the image that springs to mind is of the long grass. I am grateful to him for suggesting that I might be part of the process, but I want to be reassured that we are in the short grass. Lastly, is there general agreement with the devolved Administrations or is that a sticking point?

[Dr Poulter]

I reassure my hon. Friend that I am not aware of any points of disagreement with the devolved Administrations, but I will write to him and provide reassurance if there are any issues of which I am unaware. My understanding is that there is a unified position across all of the different health Departments.

Health and Care Services

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I wish to run through some of the points in our report for the benefit of the House and to suggest that there is one area of supply to the health service that is not being considered enough. At the moment we have two legs on the stool, rather than three.

Before I do that, I would like to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell)—I used to know him as the Member for Loughborough, which might cause some confusion—on his speech. He is ever modest to say that the Committee came up with the term “Nicholson challenge”. I firmly remember that it was he who came up with it. It is absolutely to his credit that, as a former Treasury Minister, he has focused absolutely on the costs; and here we are today, addressing estimates and how we deal with the ever-increasing demand for health services.

Although they have come up already, there are a couple of points that we must bear in mind. They include the devastating impact of the potential 6p on income tax if we do not get this right and the difficulties—although some of my hon. Friends might dispute this—of achieving a 4% efficiency gain.

We have seen the impossibility of solving the problem through public sector pay restraint alone, and tinkering with tariffs is another issue. How do we cope with that? Tinkering with the tariffs will not solve the problem; we have to go for a full integration of services. That issue was well illustrated by the ghastliness of the Mid Staffs experience, the Winterbourne experience and the Morecambe Bay experience—those unbelievable failures in the health service. Apart from the financial requirements, that points us in the direction of the importance of delivering improved services through integration.

We really must focus on structures and the delivery of care. The primary response of the NHS to the Nicholson challenge should be, as the Committee said, to prioritise fundamental service redesign. That will lead to better quality care for more NHS patients. Paragraph 82 of the Committee’s report states that it is

“inconceivable that this performance can be delivered—together with quality improvement that is…required—if planning proceeds within traditional silos.”

We have to break down the old system and start afresh.

Of course, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 is the foundation of this new approach. It is a Bill that had a somewhat tortuous passage through the House, with some reconfiguration, but it has delivered enormous opportunities. Yesterday, when the Health Secretary came to the Health Select Committee, I was struck when he explained to us the savings that the 2012 Act has already achieved. Although the reconfiguration is hugely costly in itself, running to over £1 billion, the fact is that the savings are already in place. My right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood highlighted the importance of bearing down on costs, and this is already being realised through the reconstruction that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 has provided.

The Conservative party is ever the party of choice, and we made it quite clear—in deference to my Liberal colleagues I should say that the coalition made it clear—that we want patient choice. That is essential. Through the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the health and wellbeing boards and personal budgets—they are somewhat overlooked but have proved to be incredibly successful—we have the structure to provide for patient choice.

What we have not really addressed or seen yet is what the patients will choose to ask for. There is a supply-side issue here in the range of services, treatments and therapies that are—or are not—currently available through the health service. If we are further to reduce costs, and broaden choice, we are going to have to put what I would describe as the third leg on the stool. We have the integration of health and social care, but what is also important is the integration of the range of therapies available in this country that are not necessarily statutorily regulated and available within the health service as we speak.

You may recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, that many years ago I had the honour of serving on the Committees considering the osteopathy and chiropractic Bills, which subsequently became Acts. That legislation which brought statutory regulation to osteopathy and chiropractic, brought them more fully into the mainstream health service. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter)is, I am reliably informed, tasked with dealing with the next great challenge, which is herbal medicine. He may not be overwhelmingly delighted to know that there is a one and a half hour Adjournment debate next Tuesday in Westminster Hall, where we will discuss this issue in some detail.

When we talk about 13-year spans in this place, it usually refers to 13 years of Conservative government. It has also been 13 years, however, since the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report on complementary medicine, which recommended the statutory regulation of herbal practitioners. We must address this issue, as we will next Tuesday in some detail, but let me set out the stall by pointing out that three quarters of the population are using herbal medicine, homeopathy or other types of alternative medicine.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions 13 years, but it is only three years since the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee delivered a damning report, saying that there was no evidence base for homeopathy at all. Does the hon. Gentleman think that we should address that before we try to use precious NHS resources in this way?

--- Later in debate ---

[David Tredinnick]

There are two separate issues here: herbal medicine and homeopathic medicine. The Science and Technology report was very controversial. I now have the honour to serve on the Science and Technology Committee, and we have been looking at these issues. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that in France, 70% of the population and all pregnant women use homeopathy. Some doctors are trained in both types of medicine, and they tend to prescribe fewer allopathic drugs for their patients, which works out much cheaper. There is a lot of research to be done on that. Homeopathy is, of course, widely used across the world, including in the United States and in India. I think this country has a lot of catching up to do. That is why, as I said to the Secretary of State yesterday, I have stuck with this issue over the years.

I would also say to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) that there is a huge injustice here. Just as we had racial prejudice in the past, we seem to have a similar kind of prejudice here based on the worst possible “turf war” considerations. I think I had better leave it there, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I might be indulging your patience.

The former Secretary of State for Health said in 2011 that he thought statutory regulation was the way forward. I have to say to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that he should consider going down the route of the Health and Care Professions Council; I think there is some talk about the Professional Standards Authority. As the Minister reflects on the challenge he faces, he should remember that many people in this country are affected by this, and that we are looking to him to come up with a workable solution.

I leave him with one thought on this subject. By chance, I spoke in a recent meeting to Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, the last but one Governor of Hong Kong. He brought statutory regulation of herbal medicines into Hong Kong. He said that he did so not just because it was better to have a properly regulated discipline that would help to avoid the misuse of prescribing, but also because of the turf war between the medical establishment and the herbal community. I think that there is a real danger—I shall expand on it next week—of the Minister being pressurised by people who are doing so only because of vested interests, which I think is very sad.

I applaud the direction in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood has taken our Select Committee in focusing on the need to bear down on costs in the health service and to shine a bright light on this phenomenally difficult challenge of increasing demand and how we pay for it. I have suggested that while it is brilliant to have the integration of health and social care, if we are to satisfy the demands of people—through the different boards under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and through personal budgets—we are going to have to look more seriously at the other therapies that are available but are not regulated or brought into the health service. The Minister really must try to grasp the importance of herbal medicine because practitioners cannot get the supplies they need to be able to practise as they should. I wish him well in his endeavours.

Children’s Heart Surgery

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The answer is this needs to be a mix of both; this needs to be about clinical excellence and issues such as accessibility and travel. A wide range of factors are involved. I accept, and this is widely accepted, that it is particularly difficult with specialist services to interpret mortality rates in a meaningful way, but that does not mean we should not look at them and seek to learn what we can.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend’s statement will have given great hope to all those in and around Leicestershire who campaigned to keep Glenfield hospital, and we welcome the acceptance that the original site selection was flawed and the implicit acceptance of bias against the east midlands and against the east of the country in general. On a positive note, if we are going to have the clinical case for change accepted and consolidation in the future, what is his understanding of the number of lives that would be saved if we have to go through this painful process?

[Mr Hunt]

I do not want to pluck a number out of the air; I want to listen to the clinical evidence on that. However, it is important to say that as a result of the excess mortality identified at Bristol the Kennedy report said that up to 170 lives could have been saved over a 10-year period in just one location. That is why it is so important that we get this decision right.

A and E Departments

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I have not seen any plans for the closure of St Helier. I know that NHS London is looking at possibilities to improve services in those areas, but, as the hon. Lady will know and should take comfort from, if a major reconfiguration is proposed and then referred to the Secretary of State by the local overview and scrutiny committee, I will not approve the change unless I am convinced that it will improve patient care.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we could make better use of the ambulance service and that if we had more fully trained ambulance men who could assess whether a patient needed to go to hospital, we could reduce A and E admissions that way?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the importance of the ambulance service, which is also feeling the pressure on A and E departments. We need to help the ambulance service to do its job better too. One thing that it always strikes me would make a huge difference to ambulance services is if staff could access the GP records of someone they were picking up on a 999 call, so that they would know that the patient was a diabetic with mild dementia and a heart condition, for instance. That kind of information can be incredibly helpful. I hope that by sorting out the IT issues with which the last Government struggled, we can help ambulance services to do that.

Health and Social Care

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

In challenging circumstances, the NHS is performing extremely well. Front-line staff are making heroic efforts to control costs as they cope with the pressures of an ageing population and when 1 million more people are using A and E every year than at the time of the last election.

The Opposition run down NHS performance, but the reality is a service delivering more than it ever did on their watch: 400,000 more operations every year than under Labour; the number of people waiting more than a year for an operation down from over 18,000 in May 2010, to just 665 at the end of February; MRSA infections halved; mixed-sex accommodation nearly abolished; dementia diagnosis rates going up; and more than 28,000 people receiving life-saving drugs from the cancer drugs fund that Labour refused to set up. As we debate health, care and support today, I take the opportunity to commend and thank all the dedicated professionals who work extraordinary hours, day in, day out, for their part in making this happen.

If we are to prepare for the future, however, we need to do more. In our generation, the number of over-85s will double, the number of people with dementia will pass the 1 million mark, and 3 million people will have not one, not two, but three chronic conditions to cope with, on top of the other pressures of old age. We must be there for each and every one of them—the founding values of the NHS would accept nothing less—and to do so we must be able to answer three big questions: how can we be certain that people receive compassionate care even when they are not able to speak for themselves; how can we deliver joined-up care to people who use the NHS and social care system on a regular basis; and how can we ensure that sustainable funding is in place for care and support?

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of widespread concern among the herbal medical community that there is no statutory regulation on that area in the Care Bill. Does he agree that if polymorbidity is to be dealt with we must have firm regulation, and that just licensing herbs, as the European Union wants, would destroy the industry?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend follows such matters extremely closely and I reassure him that the Government will update the House on that issue very soon.

The Care Bill will take a critical step forward in addressing each of the big questions that I raised, so let us consider how. First is compassionate care. Labour’s target culture led to warped priorities in our NHS and appalling human tragedy. No one disputes the value of targets, and the four-hour target played an important role in improving A and E departments. We do not, however, need targets at any cost, as we saw at Stoke Mandeville, Maidstone and Mid Staffs.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane). I entirely agree with what he said about mindfulness and the need for NICE to ensure that it is available for the treatment of stress in particular. That is all the more important now that we have a Government who have put patient choice at the heart of the health service, a fact that will become more and more evident as health and wellbeing boards and Healthwatch start to make an impression through the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

Like the hon. Gentleman, I intend to focus exclusively on health issues. I shall concentrate not on what is in the Queen’s Speech but on what is missing from it, particularly the expected statutory regulation of herbal therapies. If we are to ensure that the range of treatments that people demand, including mindfulness, are safely regulated in the health service, we must tackle the issue of herbal medicine, which is a crucial tool in our cupboard.

At this point, I must declare an interest. I was involved in the legislation applying to the last two groups that were made subject to statutory regulation, the Osteopaths Act 1993 and the Chiropractors Act 1994, as a member of the Standing Committees that considered those Bills. Let me emphasise to Ministers how important it is to take that route. It makes practitioners focus on a disciplined structure and operate a robust complaints procedure, it makes it easier for doctors to refer, and it makes treatments more widely available.

When it comes to herbs, we need an interface with European legislation. We must deal with regulation 3(6) of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012, which grants “a person”, not a therapist, the right to practise. What worries me is that Ministers may regulate not therapists but specific herbs. There are thousands of them out there, and that cannot be satisfactory. We must give therapists the right to prescribe. In the case of traditional Chinese medicine, for example, most practitioners will prescribe three herbs to work in conjunction. As I have said in the House before, it works like the Whips Office: there is a chief, a deputy and a messenger. The messenger takes the chief and the deputy to cure the problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) laughs; of course, that does not always apply to Whips.

My greatest worry is this: I believe that the statutory regulation has been blocked by vested interests in the orthodox medical community who have said to the Secretary of State “We do not want this, because it will enhance the status of herbal therapists.” If that is true, it is selfish and stupid.

A sub-set of the problems lies in the fact that there are two types of herbal therapies. There is the phyto therapy provided by Hydes Herbal Clinic in Leicester, which I believe is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), and there is traditional Chinese medicine, which involves the use of different types of herb. We need separate registers to make sure that these therapies are prescribed safely.

It is interesting to see the headlines that are appearing now. The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd talked about doctors using mindfulness. One headline states, “GPs prefer herbal remedies to Prozac, says survey”, and one such cited remedy is St John’s wort, which in fact has side-effects if used with other, conventional, medicines. One reason why I want statutory legislation is to make sure that people who are taking herbal medicines can go to their doctors and say, “Yes, I am taking it, and doing so under the prescription of a statutorily regulated practitioner.”

I should say in passing that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), who has been dealing with this issue, has graciously offered me a meeting to discuss it further, and I look forward to taking him up on that.

Provision was made in the Health and Social Care Act 2012 for the Professional Standards Authority, which should regulate all complementary therapies other than those provided by individual practitioners, who are regulated under individual legislation. The Society of Homeopaths, which I have supported for years, should be regulated too. Here, we are completely out of line not just with Europe but with Asia and America. We have not used enough of such resources. It is patently absurd to say it is all placebo, given that in Europe 40,000 physicians practise homeopathy, in Asia, 250,000 physicians practise it, and it is practised in Brazil, Nigeria and America. It is not a placebo, because people are using it. One can fool some of the people all of the time and vice versa, but not all the people all of the time.

The other reason why those who oppose such therapies make some headway is they refer only to homeopaphy randomised control trials. Sixty-four of 156 have been positive, and only 11 negative. We should also consider meta-analyses and patient-reported outcomes. Where double-blind placebo-controlled trials are conducted, they are ignored.

Just a few centuries ago, scientists were saying that the sun went round the earth; now, we know that the earth goes round the sun. Science changes. Here, we should bear in mind what is known as the Semmelweis reflex. When a doctor in Germany discovered that child mortality rates could be reduced if doctors washed their hands, conventional practitioners pooh-poohed the idea, but eventually it became the norm. We have to be progressive, and so it is with some homeopathic remedies, which are so dilute that they cannot be seen through conventional analysis. However, the fact is that those very dilute substances work effectively. The future lies in a wider range of health provision across the health service.

I want to finish with an e-mail I received today:

“Dear David,

From browsing the web I hear you are cynically referred to as the honourable member for Holland and Barrett.”

Yes, a Labour Minister many years ago called me that. The e-mail continues:

“If those who jeer had survived a life debilitating illness like Parkinson’s for twenty years, I would have more time for them.

I have done this while trying to escape the unsolicited attentions of a family populated with several consultants and even more GPs… Alternative therapies like homeopathy, acupuncture, herbs and now helminths are the reason I am alive today.”

Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

We are always open to discuss anything that can improve outcomes for anybody suffering from cancer, and certainly we are alert to all new research. As I said, if that involves talking to devolved Administrations, my officials do that in order to improve outcomes for people in England.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that one of the most effective treatments in reducing the impact of prostate cancer is traditional Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture, and does she agree that it is crucial that we get the regulation of herbal practitioners in place as soon as we can?

[Anna Soubry]

All these things have to be evidence-based. I am reminded of the evidence that the chief medical officer gave recently on this subject.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

Those are good points well made, if I may say so. I am more than happy to discuss that further with the hon. Lady, because I take the firm view that everyone involved in making, manufacturing, supplying and selling food has a responsibility to make sure that all of us have longer, healthier, happier lives. I am all for ratcheting up the responsibility deal.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

May I alert my right hon. and hon. Friends to the recently published road map for complementary and alternative medicine in Europe, which cost the European Commission £1.5 million? Will they look at it carefully to see where services can be extended in our own national health service?

[Dr Poulter]

I assure my hon. Friend that we will look carefully at anything that he wants to put forward, but any treatment on the NHS needs, of course, to be evidence-based.