Coronavirus Grants: Fraud

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I listened to the debate yesterday, in which the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, indicated that some lenders were failing on fraud. Can the Minister say which lenders are failing on fraud?

Maternity Services in Morecambe Bay

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

On the noble Baroness’s second point, I shall of course take due note of her recommendation. It is something to which we will give very careful thought. On the principal issue that she raised about supervision, as she knows, the statutory supervision of midwives was designed more than 100 years ago—in 1902, I believe—to protect the public. In our view, it no longer meets the needs of current midwifery practice. The King’s Fund was commissioned by the NMC to review midwifery regulation following the findings of the ombudsman that midwifery regulation was structurally flawed as a framework for public protection. The current structure does not differentiate between the requirements of regulation and clinical supervision.

If, as I anticipate, legislation is needed to change this—I think it is clear that it is—that is likely to take up to two years, even on the best estimate. During that time the Department of Health will work with the UK chief nursing officers, the NMC and the Royal College of Midwives to develop a four-country approach, which it has to be, as the noble Baroness will understand, to midwifery supervision that will replace the current statutory midwifery supervision. I hope that that is helpful.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I have to admit that, as an obstetrician, when I read this report, my immediate response was intense anger, anger at this systems failure on a grand scale. None of these things should have occurred. This is not an example of failure of a mild degree or of a relationship. This is failure on a major scale. No maternity unit in the country would tolerate these kinds of tragedies occurring in their own unit.

I commend the report. I have worked with the chairman and several of the expert advisers. Dr Kirkup worked with me when I carried out the inquiry on cancer services in Gateshead. He was a member of the team and I know the others, particularly as they come from my own hospital. Professor Stewart Forsyth was neonatologist with me, and I know James Walker, whose father is responsible for all the successes I have had in obstetrics and none of the failures. His name was also James Walker.

What can we do? There is the idea of mandatory reporting of unexpected maternal deaths and stillbirths. We have a stillbirth rate in the antenatal period that has not reduced in this country for 40 years. We have unexpectedly high numbers of normally formed babies who die in the interpartum period but who should not die. If that kind of tragedy ever occurred in my unit, there was a major investigation immediately afterwards. Mandatory reporting may highlight this issue because we need to address it.

I will focus on one recommendation of the several that are addressed regarding the professional organisations in medicine and midwifery. They need to step up to the plate and respond positively to this report on what their role will be in making maternity services safer in this country. The noble Earl referred to an airline-type investigation for root cause analysis. I accept that that is absolutely necessary but it requires experience and training and it must be done soon after the event to learn the lessons that might be applicable to other maternity units. I am encouraged to hear that NHS England will carry out a review of maternity services and I hope that it will be an in-depth review with the specific purpose of making maternity services safer. It should not be about demarcation issues with which we got ourselves tied up previously between different professional groups. It should not be about relocating services. It should be about making maternity services safer.

I have lots of questions but they are not for today and I will save them for another time. I hope all of us—no matter who the Government are—will now work to make maternity services in this country among the best possible.

[Lord Patel]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. That is why I said that the review must address how to make maternity services safer and not address any of the demarcation issues. I work with midwives. Midwives taught me—I have said that before in this House—so there should be no issues between different professional groups, whether they be nurses, midwives, doctors, neonatologists, anaesthetists or whoever.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, anyone who reads this report will not fail to alight on the phrase that Dr Kirkup uses—that what we had at this hospital was a “lethal mix”, comprising, among other things, substandard clinical competence, poor working relationships in the maternity unit, a move among the midwives to pursue normal childbirth at any cost, shooing obstetricians away at various points, and failures of risk assessment and care planning that led to unsafe care. All these things should pull us up short and, indeed, do so. They are shocking. We certainly expect the relevant professional regulatory bodies, including the GMC and the NMC, to review the findings of this investigation report and act on the recommendations. Those organisations should review the findings of the report concerning the professional conduct of registrants involved in the care of patients at the trust to ensure that appropriate action is taken against anyone who has broken their professional code, but building on those lessons to see whether there are wider matters around safety to be considered.

On mandatory reporting, I can only add to the remarks that I made to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, by saying that we remain totally committed to the principle of the reforms. Further progress will be informed by reconsideration of the detail of the new system in the light of other positive developments on patient safety since 2010 and by a subsequent public consultation exercise. We are working with the health departments in the devolved Administrations, NHS England and the professional bodies to consider how standardised reviews for all perinatal losses might be introduced.

Smoking: E-Cigarettes

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes an extremely important point. It is one that is addressed in the tobacco products directive, which is due to come into force next year. The EU Commission is clear that any e-cigarettes sold need to be tamper-proof, particularly as regards children interfering with the contents.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, it is good to know that the National Institute for Health Research would support a larger randomised study, but what the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, said is true. The current evidence from the Cochrane analysis—the most robust method we know of analysing whether a product, device or a drug is effective against the desired outcome—is that, although the studies were small, 14 observational studies and two randomised trials show that e-cigarettes are more effective than nicotine patches or a placebo. Would the Minister agree that the industry should now also address a standard dosage of nicotine and ensure that the quality of the nicotine used in e-cigarettes is standardised across the industry to avoid subsequent risks?

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes some important points. He has highlighted the fact that many products on sale are of, shall we say, variable quality. There are risks around the extent to which the dose of nicotine delivered varies; the quality of the ingredients can be suspect; and there is a question mark over the electrical safety of some products. We cannot make a general statement about products that are currently on sale. Nevertheless, it is right that the European Union has taken this matter in hand. From May 2016, only licensed e-cigarettes will be able to contain nicotine in strengths greater than 20 milligrams per millilitre. That will introduce some standardisation.

HIV

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Thursday 15th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, in November 2013 DfID conducted a review of our 2011 HIV position paper. The review paper highlighted three areas of particular focus in the international context. They were to identify the key affected populations—girls and women—and the integration of HIV responses into the wider health system, as well as broader development priorities. That of course includes tackling stigma and the unacceptable things that we see in certain overseas countries, including discriminatory legislation.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, did the Minister refer to 26,000 people being undiagnosed? What is that number based on?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, these figures inevitably have to be estimates but they rely on data from three surveys that measure undiagnosed HIV infection among sexual health clinic attendees, pregnant women and people who inject drugs. Comprehensive clinical data from sexual health clinics relating to patients newly diagnosed with HIV are also used to infer the risk of undiagnosed infection.

NHS: Five Year Forward View

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I will have to take advice about that question. What I can say is that we now have in place a system of workforce planning that is better than its predecessor. I do not think there can ever be such a thing as a perfect system of workforce planning. We now have a national body, Health Education England, that is responsible for making sure that we have adequate numbers of professionals with the right skills. However, we also have local education training boards whose members include representatives from the acute trusts. It is up to those boards to make clear what the requirements are for trained staff and feed those requirements up to Health Education England so that planning over the coming years can be done in a rational and sensible way. I would expect that spinal units should make their case in that fashion so that if there is a need for physiotherapists in spinal units, and those physios are—for any reason—not available, then they will come forward in adequate numbers in years to come.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister started his Statement by saying that the Government recognise the importance of life sciences in both economic growth and in delivering mental health care. Of course, I would agree with that and I take it from the Statement that the Government therefore have no intention of cutting the budget of either clinical or medical research in the spending review to come. I welcome the suggestion that the Government will recruit more people to decode genetic information. Of course, we will need that if we are to develop better biomarkers or drugs for treatment, but the personalised medicine that would lead to is expensive and the budgets it will require will be far greater that what we have now.

I also welcome the idea that we integrate the care of patients and do not have a demarcation between primary care, community care and hospital care, but the model that he suggested might not quite do that. He might like to reassure us that the model he has in mind is of complete integration of care, otherwise we will not win the battle for better care for people suffering from long-term conditions.

The comment about future budgets requires a greater debate. I have read the review in detail and it is a bold statement to say we can conduct a five-year review of healthcare without any further restructuring. I, for one, do not mind some restructuring if it will lead to better delivery of healthcare.

[Earl Howe]

I think that the restructuring the Government believe is necessary is the restructuring of the delivery of care and the culture, as the Statement made clear. What we do not think necessary is a restructuring of the architecture of the National Health Service. That has been done and, as I have said, we are set fair for the future. As regards integration, will it be complete integration? “Integration” is a word that is bandied about and it will mean different things in different areas, depending on what is necessary. We are clear that the better care fund plans, for example, which focus on this idea of integration, should most definitely involve the acute sector and social care along with primary and community care, and in many cases other disciplines as well. Pharmacy, for example, has a major part to play in reducing unplanned hospital admissions and I could cite many other professional disciplines. It depends on what each area requires.

I cannot give an answer on the research budget in the next spending review because that spending review will be conducted by the next Government, whoever they will be. Meanwhile, we are clear that the research budget is an absolutely essential part of the NHS’s future ability to provide quality care for patients over the long term. As the noble Lord knows, we have protected that budget during this Parliament.

NHS: Funding

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, as it is nearly Christmas I have not given the Minister the advantage of seeing the question beforehand, but with his dexterity in answering I am sure that he will answer it straight. Can he predict which party, elected into government next May, will keep the NHS free at the point of need?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I cannot speak for a party other than my own, but I can tell the noble Lord firmly that we are averse to any system of charging and wish to keep the NHS free at the point of use, regardless of ability to pay.

NHS: Health and Social Care Act 2012 Reforms

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I take issue with the phrase “grotesque mess”. If the noble Lord cares to look at the figures, he will see that waiting times are low and stable, MRSA and C. diff infections are at record lows, mixed-sex wards are down by 98% and the number of people waiting a long time for treatment is massively reduced. Yes, we know that many A&E departments are under pressure but many are coping. The work that we are doing, including channelling more money into the system for this winter, should, we hope, relieve the worst of the problems.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

Now that general practitioners will have incentives to diagnose dementia, will it lead to a better and more accurate diagnosis? Will it increase the number of people diagnosed with dementia or will it increase the number of people falsely diagnosed with dementia? Let us remember that there is no cure or treatment for any of them.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord, in his ingenious way, is deviating slightly from the Question on the Order Paper which refers to the costs of the reforms. We are in dialogue with the medical profession to ensure that none of those perverse consequences happens.

Ebola

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 13th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his Statement. I have two quick questions. One relates to the staff who have volunteered to go out to Sierra Leone and to all soldiers. If any of them get infected while they are working there, will they be brought back to the United Kingdom for treatment? My second question relates to the treatment. While there are likely to be early trials of the vaccine that is being developed, it may well prove ineffective. But there are other companies developing other treatments. Are there plans to fast-track approval of these drugs if they are found to be effective? We know that the stock of ZMapp is now exhausted; further monoclonal antibodies development is likely to take some time.

[Earl Howe]

There is a limited amount that I can say to the noble Lord about his second question. A general answer is that we would naturally want to give as fast a passage as possible through the regulatory process to any breakthrough treatment for Ebola. It should be borne in mind, however, that safety is the paramount concern. This is why it is important that the vaccine, which is now in clinical trials, is thoroughly tested for safety as well as efficacy. If there is further news on this that I can impart to the noble Lord, I will be happy to write to him.

The noble Lord asked whether staff who volunteer will be repatriated if they contract the disease. My advice is that decisions on repatriation would be taken on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the clinical condition of the person and the benefit they may gain from repatriation. Repatriation involves a long journey that can potentially be dangerous for the patient. Once there is high-quality treatment available in Sierra Leone, it will not necessarily be in the best interests of the patient to be repatriated. That is why we are building the 12-bed unit specifically for national and international healthcare workers.

NHS: Hospital Waiting Times

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Thursday 10th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is a very eloquent advocate of this particular issue and he is of course right.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

Can the Minister tell us how those trusts that do not report on their waiting times, although they are small in number, are dealt with? How can they be held responsible when they do not report?

[Earl Howe]

A handful of trusts are unable to report the full range of figures on their waiting times. They are given support to enable them to do so either by Monitor if they are foundation trusts or by the NHS Trust Development Authority.

Healthcare Professions: Regulation

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as my noble friend will know, we have debated the regulation of healthcare assistants on a number of occasions. The Government’s view is well known. However, I agree with him that the content of the Law Commission’s draft Bill is welcome to many parties—indeed, the Government are keen to see it progress. Much of the proposed legislation is already law in one form or another. The review is about pulling together all the different bits of legislation, introducing consistency across the professional regulators where practicable, making sure legislation is fit for purpose and, importantly, introducing flexibility for the regulators to respond to changing situations.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

Will the Minister confirm that the Department of Health intends to bring in an urgent amendment via a Section 60 order to allow the GMC to implement the urgent reforms that it needs to protect patients and bring doctors to account?

[Earl Howe]

Yes, my Lords, we are working with the GMC to develop secondary legislation that will strengthen and protect the separation of the GMC’s investigation and adjudication functions by establishing the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in statute, as well as modernising the adjudication procedures, and to address a number of lacunas in the legislative framework. We are seeking to have the Section 60 order on the GMC’s fitness-to-practise processes in place before the general election.

NHS England: Health and Social Care Act 2012

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I do not accept that CCGs are subject to unreasonable controls from NHS England. It is the task of NHS England to support CCGs and hold them to account, and that is what I believe it is properly doing, not least through the outcomes framework. Ministers are not intervening on the question of mental health funding because funding is just one part of the story when it comes to parity of esteem. We have set NHS England a strategic objective to make measurable progress towards achieving true parity of esteem for mental health. NHS England is responsible for allocating funds to clinical commissioning groups, which are best placed to invest in services that meet the needs of their local communities. However, we will of course hold NHS England to account for that. What we must not do is to single out certain elements of the equation at this stage.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

Can the Minister say whether the Ministers in the Department of Health are happy that NHS England has recommended a 20% deflater to tariffs for mental health that destroys any possibility of achieving any kind of parity of esteem?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we are not happy with that and, as I have said in the House before, Ministers have made it very clear to NHS England that this decision is both surprising and unwelcome in view of the need to maintain parity of esteem. NHS England, the NHS Trust Development Authority and Monitor are addressing this issue vigorously and we have regular discussions with those bodies to ensure that mental health services do not suffer.

NHS: Mental Health Funding

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The right reverend Prelate raises an important dimension of this whole issue. We have been looking at ways to overcome inequalities in access to services, which includes better access for black and minority ethnic communities to mental health services. For example, we know that people from BME communities have been less likely to use psychological therapies. To tackle that, the department is working with the Race Equality Foundation and other stakeholders to understand why that is so and to understand inequalities around access to other mental health services and what can be done to improve that. NHS England is also working with BME community leaders to encourage more people to use psychological therapies.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

Has the Minister any comment on the fact that Monitor and NHS England have recommended, pro rata, 20% greater cuts in funding for mental health services than for acute services?

Health: Folic Acid Fortification

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

There is a range of routes whereby we ensure that, as far as possible, women are advised on folic acid intake, particularly those women of childbearing age who may be thinking of starting a family. That includes the Start4Life information service and other media routes. I am not aware of specific media campaigns in this area, but if I can be enlightened on that I will write to my noble friend.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

The Minister commented that no other European country has adopted fortification. Does he agree that the reason for that is that no other European country has the same incidence of neural tube defects as we have here in the United Kingdom? The incidence is far greater in the United Kingdom.

[Earl Howe]

That is an issue that we will of course weigh up as we look at the risks and benefits and take a decision, as we will in the next few days.

Regenerative Medicine: S&T Committee Report

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Thursday 13th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend anticipates some news that I was about to convey. He is right: the Health Research Authority is the organisation created to deliver the streamlining of research approvals. It has completed its feasibility study. The results demonstrated that NHS R&D assessments could be integrated with elements of the research ethics committee review into a single HRA assessment for the approval of all research in the NHS. Department of Health officials are scrutinising the business case submitted by the HRA as part of standard governance processes, and approval of the case is subject to the proposals demonstrating value for money. Consideration of the business case is well advanced and we would anticipate that this process will conclude shortly.

The noble Lords, Lord Patel, Lord Turnberg and Lord Hunt, asked me about support for manufacturing, in particular as regards large-scale trials. The Cell Therapy Catapult has recently completed its survey of regenerative medicine manufacturing capacity in the UK, and an appraisal of national capability is planned on an annual basis to keep abreast of the evolving needs of the area and to ensure that the UK remains globally competitive. The 2013 survey and analyses that the Cell Therapy Catapult compiled have been shared with stakeholders. The key findings of the survey, including a demand forecast, have been shared at various meetings in the UK, including at the Regenerative Medicine Expert Group, and at meetings of the advanced therapeutic products manufacturing community and will be published shortly. The survey output, along with analysis of demand, was used to make a proposal to BIS for further investment to fill the cell manufacturing gap and support late-stage clinical trials. The investment proposal is currently being assessed.

The noble Lord, Lord Patel, asked what action UKTI has taken to improve the chances of the UK being a location for the development and manufacture of regenerative medicine therapies. UKTI has consulted extensively with UK stakeholders and has developed a new UK regenerative medicine sector proposition, which was launched in December 2013 at the World Stem Cell Summit in San Diego. Training on the materials has been rolled out to a number of its overseas teams, with more training to follow in the coming months.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, made some criticism of the MHRA in the context of progress on adaptive licensing. This issue was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg. The MHRA has been involved with a discussion group at the European Medicines Agency in developing guidance, case studies and draft calls for expressions of interest to go out this year. One has to remember that work on adaptive licensing must be conducted within the context of European law. We had hoped that this would be issued last year but there has been a delay, as the European Commission has wanted to be satisfied that proposals can be accommodated in the existing regulatory flexibilities. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that we continue to be actively involved in pushing the EMA in bringing this work forward, and I have been personally involved in overseeing that.

Distinct from the concept of adaptive licensing is the early access to medicines scheme. This is designed to enable earlier UK patient access to highly promising medicinal products before they are licensed. This is expected to be announced very soon. It will operate within the current regulatory structure, and is voluntary and non-statutory. The MHRA will provide a scientific opinion on promising new medicines that will treat, diagnose or prevent life-threatening or seriously debilitating conditions without adequate treatment options before the medicines are licensed. Further details will be announced in the near future.

My noble friend Lord Willis asked about NICE’s value-assessment process. NICE, in consultation with stakeholders, keeps its methodologies under review to ensure that they remain fit for purpose. Our priority is to make sure that we get the best possible results for all NHS patients with the resources that we have, which means using taxpayers’ money responsibly and getting good value for money. We have asked NICE to look at how drugs are assessed so that patients can get the treatments that they need at the best value for the NHS and so that the price that the NHS pays is more closely linked to the value that a medicine brings. NICE will carry out a full public consultation before implementing any changes. I would just add that NICE is a key member of the Regenerative Medicine Expert Group, which will look at and provide recommendations on the evaluation and commissioning of these novel medicines and their adoption in the NHS.

My noble friend Lord Selborne and the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, referred to developments in Japan. We are aware of the Japanese plans, and the report on the approach is being considered by the expert group. As noble Lords have mentioned, the Japanese Government are exploring ways in which the regulatory process there might be changed to support earlier evaluation of the clinical effectiveness and adoption of regenerative medicines within their health system following evidence of safety. Earlier this year, a Department of Health official, along with Foreign Office officials, attended a conference in Japan where the plans were discussed. The details have yet to be worked out but a watching brief will be maintained with the contacts that were made. A report of the conference has been made available to the expert group for consideration.

The Government look forward to receiving the Regenerative Medicine Expert Group’s strategy and action plan. We anticipate that this will provide a platform to help ensure that the UK will be in the lead in realising the exciting medical and commercial potential of these cutting-edge treatments.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his detailed response and all other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been a very good debate, which went wider than the inquiry report. I look forward to another debate when the report of the expert working group comes out; we will know then whether progress has been made.

Health: Folic Acid

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as I have explained on earlier occasions, it is very important that we use the latest data to reach a robust and defensible view of the risks and benefits on this issue. We will take the new National Diet and Nutrition Survey data on folate status into account when we do reach a decision. As for the position taken in other countries, while a number of countries have introduced mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid, others notably have decided against it, including Ireland and New Zealand.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, the single most effective public health measure, which would prevent the birth of babies with severe spina bifida and lifelong disability, would be 400 micrograms daily of folic acid. Why would we not do that as a public health measure, when all the scientific evidence is already there?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, in recommending the fortification of flour with folic acid, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition also advised that action should be taken to reduce levels of voluntary fortification, which, as the noble Lord knows, is applied to a number of breakfast cereals, for example. That is no easy matter. It would be necessary to avoid folate levels exceeding recommended limits and to put action in train to achieve that. There are other conditions and advice attached to the SACN recommendation; it is not quite as straightforward in practice as the noble Lord might suggest, although I recognise that the recommendation from SACN is there.

Health: Meningitis B Vaccine

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

Last October, in recognition of concerns about the methodology currently used for assessing cost-effectiveness of vaccines, the JCVI agreed that a working group should be formed to consider two issues: first, how the impact of vaccination programmes to prevent rare diseases of high severity should be best assessed; and, secondly, whether there were aspects of cost-effectiveness in relation specifically to children that should be addressed. It is a complex issue both economically and, indeed, ethically. We should not expect a report from that group, once it has been established, until next year at the earliest.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, the vaccines that my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg—he is a friend, at least as regards medical matters—talked about are developed through a new kind of science, which does not involve the use of eggs or any other animal material, and therefore is not only more effective but produces fewer side-effects, particularly in children. The vaccine that we are talking about is for a particular type of meningitis. The new vaccine may not be considered as cost-effective as a conventional vaccine. However, if you take into account clinical side-effects, the new vaccine may be considered cost-effective, so a different kind of assessment must be carried out that is based not just on conventional cost-effectiveness.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes a series of very important points. I know he will understand that it would be wrong for me to be drawn into going into too much detail on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of this vaccine because that is the job we have given to the JCVI.

Food and Soft Drink Industry: Sugar

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I think that the compliment should be paid to my noble friend Lord Ribeiro for the part that he played in bringing about the amendment on smoking in cars. A number of soft drinks companies have taken action to reduce calorie content in their drinks. Coca-Cola has reformulated its Sprite product. AG Barr pledged to reduce the average calorific content in its portfolio of drinks. I have mentioned Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s actions on their own brands. Premier Foods has reformulated various products and reduced sugar in those. Therefore, we are making headway and I think that the responsibility deal is proving its worth.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

Does the Minister think it might be advisable to ask the Government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition to define a standard of added sugar that should not be exceeded in 100 millilitres of fluid or 100 grams of food?

[Earl Howe]

I believe that I am right in saying that the experts would advise that it depends on the product that we are looking at. One cannot make a blanket rule for every type of food and drink.

Health: Flour Fortification

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. I agree with him that the incidence of rickets is a cause for concern. At the same time, he characterises the case for mandatory fortification as incontrovertible. There are risks that SACN pointed out. Its advice to government stated that fortification of flour with folic acid might have adverse effects on neurological function in people aged 65 years and over with vitamin B12 deficiency. Treatment with folic acid can alleviate or mask the anaemia and therefore delay the diagnosis of vitamin B12 deficiency, which can lead to irreversible effects.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

The noble Earl referred to two things. His immediate answer just now suggested that folic acid levels might interfere with B12 anaemia in older people. That would require a dosage of about 15 milligrams per day; the dosage we are talking about for fortification would hardly reach 1 milligram per day. The risk, therefore, is pretty minimal. Secondly, he suggested in his opening Answer that the folate level of the population might help to devise the policy. How would that help to devise the policy for women in early pregnancy who need the folic acid to reduce the incidence of neural tube defects?

[Earl Howe]

I am sure the noble Lord would agree that we have to take a decision based on the most up-to-date data. The data that we had prior to this were 10 years old and it is important to take a decision in the context of the nutritional state of health of the population. On his first question, all I can say is that the risk to which I referred was considered as part of SACN’s overall assessment and we will draw on that in reaching our decisions on the fortification of flour and give it the appropriate weight that it deserves.

Health: Birth Defects

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we recognise that some women do not always access maternity services early or attend regularly for antenatal care, and that poorer outcomes are therefore reported in some cases for mother and baby. Maternity services need to be proactive in engaging all women. To help reduce variation and improve services, NICE has published a comprehensive suite of evidence-based clinical guidelines and quality standards for maternity services. We are also promoting the taking of folic acid supplements through a number of channels including Healthy Start, NHS Choices, Start4Life, and the Information Service for Parents.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, what do the Government think are the contraindications for fortifications of flour with folic acid, knowing that the evidence shows that it would cause a reduction of about 300 in the number of babies born with neural tube defects?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I recognise the opinion that is shared among many members of the medical community on this. However, the advice we received from SACN, our expert adviser, clearly showed that there are risks and benefits associated with this proposal. It is not an open-and-shut case. Among the things that we have had to consider are the practical implications of implementing SACN’s advice, which is no small matter.

G8 Summit on Dementia

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the outcome of the G8 dementia summit.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, the G8 agreed to work together to tackle and defeat dementia. The declaration announced the G8’s ambition to identify a cure or a disease-modifying therapy by 2025 and to increase collectively and significantly the amount of funding for dementia research. The G8 also welcomed the UK’s decision to appoint a dementia innovation envoy who will work to attract new sources of finance, including examining the potential for a private and philanthropic fund.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Dementia is the dreaded diagnosis, particularly for the elderly, as it affects more than 5% of people over 65 and between 20% and 40% of those aged over 85. Because of the increasing number of elderly people, an increasing number of people are affected. I commend the Government and congratulate them on taking the initiative at the G8 and particularly on involving the WHO, because now it will become a global initiative. I have two questions. The first is about the funding that the Government announced. There is a great deal of confusion. Is it new money, money that has already been allocated to research or money that the Department of Health is giving for better diagnosis of dementia? Research on dementia must also focus more widely on understanding the biology of the disease, the inflammatory process and the epidemiology. Ring-fencing around a disease will not necessarily get to the point that the Government wish to get to. Secondly, what impact do the Government think the EU regulation on data protection will have on dementia research?

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord asked a number of questions. The Government have stated an ambition to double research funding in dementia. That will depend on the quality of the proposals that come forward and on the rate of scientific progress. We very much hope that arising out of the summit, momentum will be gained, not only in this country but internationally. As regards the noble Lord’s second question, we recognise how important this is for future dementia research and I can tell him that the Government, through the Ministry of Justice, are negotiating with member states in Europe and are aware of the impact that the proposal would have on research. It is likely to be some months before there is an agreed approach between member states and the Commission, and the Parliament is unlikely to vote on the proposal before 2015.

Tobacco: Packaging

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Thursday 28th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a fellow of several medical royal colleges, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which have all previously backed, and continue to back, the argument that legislation should be brought forward to make cigarette packaging plain. I have spoken on many occasions in relevant debates under both this Government and the previous one and have tabled amendments to bring in legislation for the plain packaging of cigarettes. I have done so on the basis that the evidence is conclusive, as shown by both the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK, that glamorised packaging is used by the industry to recruit young, new smokers. Now we have to wait until the evidence is produced by Sir Cyril Chantler. Disappointed though I am that we cannot legislate now, I can afford to wait a few months because I know that Sir Cyril Chantler, who is a friend, is a man of principle and will look at the evidence as it is. However, once that evidence is presented, what is the timeline for the Government to introduce legislation for plain packaging?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, who has indeed been a consistent champion for plain packaging over the years. I also appreciate his endorsement of the choice of Sir Cyril Chantler to lead this review. Noble Lords will know that Sir Cyril has a very distinguished record as an academic and paediatrician. As regards the timeline, I cannot be definite at this stage. All I can say is that, should the Government decide to lay regulations in the light of Sir Cyril’s recommendations, we believe that, taking into account a period of consultation and the statutory provisions surrounding European law, we would be able to introduce the regulations within a reasonable time.

NHS: Clinical Commissioning Groups

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, very definitely yes. It is precisely to avoid any perception of political interference that we made NHS England responsible for the allocation of resources to clinical commissioning groups. However, we were very specific in the mandate, as the noble Lord will recall, that the principle on which NHS England has to operate is equal access for equal need, with particular attention being paid to health inequalities while not destabilising the NHS. Those are the things we discuss in our regular meetings with NHS England but the actual nature of the formula that it will decide in its board meeting next month is entirely up to it.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, we know that the single most significant factor associated with poor health outcomes is deprivation, particularly for diseases such as chronic lung diseases, cardiovascular diseases and cancers—and, even more importantly, for chronic diseases in children. Would it not be wrong therefore if the tariff did not include the deprivation in the population when setting it for the community?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the CCG target formula recommended by ACRA this time a year ago was rejected by NHS England for the very reasons that the noble Lord cites: because it did not include an adjustment for deprivation and health inequalities. At a recent Health Select Committee hearing, Paul Baumann, the chief finance officer of NHS England, indicated that the proposed new formula would have an adjustment for a health economy’s unmet need—in other words, an adjustment for deprivation where low life expectancy suggests that people are not accessing health services.

NHS: Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I very much agree with the spirit of my noble friend’s questions. Certainly as regards complaints, the public should have a clear view of the nature of the complaints that have been registered with a particular organisation. They should be able to have a sense of what those complaints relate to and what action the organisation has taken to address the matter in question.

On my noble friend’s first point, we are currently working through the question of the care certificate and will seek advice. It is important to arrive at an agreed formula that gives the maximum assurance, both to care assistants and to those they look after, that basic standards of training have been learnt and are being adhered to. It is important to define as closely as we can what we mean by that, and as soon as we have further details we will announce them.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, and I welcome the Government’s comments on the Francis report. I apologise on behalf of my noble friend Lady Emerton, the matron, who is not here today as she is unwell, and also my noble friend—he is a friend, although he sits on the wrong Benches—Lord Willis. He cannot be here because he has been asked to undertake the duties of my noble friend Lady Emerton. They asked me to represent their views—which I will not do, because I would get them wrong, but perhaps I may make my own comments. I realise I am not allowed the same time as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, had. That is a pity, because I have much to say about the Statement.

I welcome the statutory requirement to give notification of any harm or serious misses that have happened. During my time as chairman of the National Patient Safety Agency I tried to get that into statute and failed; it was not under the current Government, but that does not matter. I am therefore delighted that this will be a statutory requirement. The important thing is that, as Don Berwick said, this is about learning; reporting by itself is not enough. The Minister referred to the airline industry, which learns from what has happened by doing root-cause analysis. We need that system established in the NHS if we are to learn from avoidable harm and near misses. Whose responsibility will it be to do that, and how will that expertise be gained?

On staffing ratios, the Minister knows that if my noble friend Lady Emerton had been here she would have asked about ratios of trained to untrained staff. Now that there will be a new care certificate to ensure training for all care assistants and nursing assistants, which I welcome, she would have asked for regulation. However, we have passed that stage, and I welcome the fact that there will be a new care certificate following the training. Why, however, is all this to be only for hospitals? What about care homes? Why were care homes excluded from reporting on staffing ratios?

[Earl Howe]

I apologise, but I did not quite hear the last part of the noble Lord’s question. Was it why care homes were excluded?

[Lord Patel]

The Statement refers particularly to hospitals. They will have to report on staffing ratios, but it did not say that care homes will have to do that.

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I am in complete agreement with him on his first point. The best thing might be for me to read out a very short passage from Professor Don Berwick, who said:

“The best keys to health care safety do not lie in blame, or regulation, or punishment, but rather in learning, support, and encouragement to the health care staff, the vast majority of whom are dedicated to excellence in care.

Leaders who aim for safe and effective care have a duty to supply the workforce with the tools, knowledge and encouragement to do the work that adds meaning to their lives”.

We have attempted, as far as we can, to make that philosophy the guiding principle of our response on patient safety. We do not want to create a blame culture; we want to create a culture that encourages everybody to feel ownership of the work that they do, and to feel well led. That is the other side of the coin to the culture that we have spoken about in other debates about innovation—about making innovation everybody’s business in an organisation. It comes down, in the end, to good leadership.

We are not insisting that every organisation should carry out root-cause analysis. On the other hand, we are saying that it is the business of trust boards to make complaints, mistakes, and lapses in patient safety central to their work and to the scrutiny that they undertake of their organisations, and for those matters to be discussed openly and resolved openly.

As regards care homes, as I said, we have commissioned NICE to work through the guidance that will underpin safe staffing. It is not yet apparent whether that will cover care homes and it is difficult to see how it could do so because care homes are clearly very different organisations from acute trusts. On the other hand, we expect the CQC to have some way of judging whether a care home can call itself safe. We will certainly look at the noble Lord’s points as we carry that work stream forward.

Tobacco Products Directive

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

Yes, my Lords. So far there is nothing in the directive to prevent that, which is why article 24 is the most important issue for the Government. We want member states, as I have said, to have the flexibility to make further progress on domestic tobacco control measures in key areas.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

Despite the EU’s lack of interest in regulating for e-cigarettes, is it the Government’s intention to regulate against them in the United Kingdom?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, our position is clear: e-cigarettes should be regulated as medicines. These products need to be regulated for safety and quality, one of the reasons being that, as medicines, we can more effectively control their sale to children and the way that they are advertised and promoted. We need to take an approach that is future proof, being applicable to new technology nicotine products in whatever form might be brought forward in the future.

Care Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 22nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I thank Members of the Committee, and especially the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for a debate which illustrates the significance of transition to young people and their families and the need to get the legal framework right for them.

As we have heard, these amendments cover a range of issues. In respect of Amendments 92D, 98 and 100, I have listened with interest to concerns about the absence of a requirement that transition assessment should take place at a particular age. We are in agreement that the timing of assessment is crucial, but this is essentially a question of approach.

The Care Bill proposes that two tests be used to ensure that assessment takes place at the right time for each young person or carer. We believe that this is preferable to rigid timescales which take no account of an individual’s needs or circumstances. First, a local authority may assess a young person, their carer or a young carer where it appears to the local authority that the child or carer is likely to have needs upon the child turning 18. This is to be used in conjunction with the second consideration, whether assessment would be of “significant benefit”. This recognises that a one-size-fits-all approach is not in the best interests of young people or their carers.

Amendments 92B and 92C would limit the group of young people who can benefit from transition planning to those who are already in receipt of services. We would not wish to impose any such restriction. Indeed, this restriction was removed following public consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny, because transition planning may equally benefit those who are not currently in receipt of services.

I have heard the concerns expressed that local authorities are not under a duty to assess in every case. This is indeed true, and for very good reason. Some young people will not have needs for care and support after the age of 18. It will not be appropriate, nor indeed will it be in a young person’s interests, to assess in every case.

I listened with interest to concerns about provision for carers of children. We need to be clear about this. Support should be available where it is needed. The question is the source and nature of that support. Clause 59 provides a power, rather than a duty, for local authorities to provide support because existing children’s legislation already includes provision for support to a child’s carer. Duplication of existing legislation may cause confusion and is unnecessary. This power is intended to enable support to be provided under adult legislation where a certain service is available only locally via that route.

I turn now to planning for transition and Amendments 92BA and 94. Provision for transition assessment is focused on the outcomes that the individual wants to achieve. I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Patel, that such outcomes may include employment, education or housing. I also share the noble Lord’s expectation that, when a child has an education, health and care plan, any assessment under these clauses should take the EHC plan into account and the assessment should be integrated into that plan.

The Care Bill and the Children and Families Bill include provision that assessment can be joint, including joined-up assessments in relation to an EHC plan. These issues will be addressed by both the guidance supporting the Care Bill and the Department for Education’s SEN code of practice.

In respect of Amendment 94, I briefly add two further points. First, when a young person over the age of 18 has an EHC plan, and as such the care part of that plan is provided under this Bill, we would expect co-operation between adult and children’s services in relation to any review of the plan under Clause 6(5)(a) and (b). Such co-operation for those under 18 who are in transition is provided for by Clause 6(5)(c). This would include co-operation with the preparation, maintenance and review of the EHC plan as provided for by the Children and Families Bill, in respect of children. Guidance can ensure that this is clear.

Secondly, requiring a local authority to make arrangements to secure provision for children and young people with a transition plan would not be appropriate. Services to children cannot be provided under the Care Bill. Children’s legislation provides for this. Services to young people over the age of 18 would be provided, if necessary, under provisions earlier in Part 1.

In relation to Amendment 104ZA, I agree on the need to ensure continuity of care. However, we must avoid creating overlap or confusion with local authorities’ existing duties in relation to children, including rights to assessment and support under the Children Act 1989. For this reason, it would be preferable for the young person to request assessment as they see fit and for the local authority to initiate this conversation with the child. The request itself is not envisaged as a formal process. Indeed, for some young people the request will form part of a conversation the local authority initiates about transition to adulthood. Guidance can be used to make this point.

Young people and their families will need information in order that they can understand the adult care and support system and, crucially, that they are aware of their right to request assessment. Clause 4 requires local authorities to establish and maintain an accessible system for information and advice including information and advice about how to access the care and support that is available.

Through Amendments 95, 96 and 97, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, have also expressed concern that there should be provision to support children with care needs to move between areas, without the fear of experiencing a gap in their care and support. I agree. Provision for people over the age of 18 already exists at Clauses 36 and 37 and provision for children with an Education Health and Care plan exists in the Children and Families Bill. If a young person under the age of 18 who has had an assessment under the provisions of Clauses 55 or 60 moves to a new area, the general duties of co-operation, in particular with other local authorities under Clause 6(6)(b), would also apply.

I should like to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, in relation to Amendments 93B, 100A and 104ZZA that consideration of “other matters”, a person’s own capabilities and the other support that may be available does not exclude the provision of more conventional care and support services where needed. Indeed, when the child becomes 18, if the individual’s needs are eligible, the local authority must meet them, in accordance with Clause 18, if the adult wants the authority to do so, and those requirements are not diminished by these three paragraphs. The intention is to recognise that, in order to make the right connections to the local community and the variety of support available, the local authority should consider how these matters, along with more formal care and support provision, could be of benefit in achieving the adult’s outcomes.

The noble Baroness suggested that carers might be pressurised by these provisions into providing care. It is certainly not our intention that pressure is put on carers. The clauses make it very clear that a carer must be willing and able to provide support and that the impact upon carers’ well-being must be considered.

She flagged up the concern that the new provisions in Clauses 56, 58 and 61 are departures from the draft Bill and asked why that was the case. The Bill as introduced includes greater clarification as to the nature of the assessment that should be carried out and what should be considered. It is largely for drafting reasons that we split the subsections relating to children, children’s carers and young carers into two subsections for each group.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, pointed out that, in his view, the Bill is framed as though young people are strangers to the local authority. The Bill makes provision both for those who are receiving children’s services and are known to social services and for those who are not currently receiving care and support. Clause 6 provides a duty to co-operate, including within the local authority. In particular, in relation to children transitioning to adulthood, there is a duty for those internal discussions to take place. The request mechanism in the Bill is not intended to be a formal or bureaucratic process, as I mentioned earlier.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked me to confirm whether the Government are considering bringing forward amendments on carers, and expressed his concern that the timing of the Children and Families Bill relative to this Bill is unfortunate. I can tell him that my noble friend Lord Nash, at Second Reading of the Children and Families Bill in your Lordships’ House, said:

“As my honourable friend the Minister for Children has said, we are considering how the legislation for young carers might be changed so that rights and responsibilities are clearer to young carers and practitioners alike. We will also look at how we can ensure that children’s legislation works with adults’ legislation to support the linking of assessments, as set out in the Care Bill, to enable whole-family approaches”.—[Official Report, 2/7/13; col. 1201-02.]

The Minister for Children and Families and the Minister for Care and Support have met the National Young Carers Coalition to discuss the key principles for taking this work forward over the summer, as well as how we can most effectively involve the NYCC during this period.

Finally, the government amendment in this group will ensure that the provision added to Clauses 58 and 61, following consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny, specifying that a needs assessment must include an assessment of the impact of the adult’s needs for care and support on their well-being, is also added to Clause 56.

We have had much discussion recently about the need to ensure that services are organised around the needs of individuals. I hope that I have been able to explain how this legislative framework for transition is focused on meeting that aspiration. I hope, too, that I have provided some reassurance about the approach we are taking to smooth the transition to adult care and support. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response, which was as detailed as my amendments. I am reassured by some of the things that he has said, and how the Bill addresses those issues. Although the Minister does not agree with me, there is an issue about specifying the age of 14 as the time of assessment for this small number of vulnerable children. There is a need to do so. However, at this point I do not wish to prolong it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I hope that we will have further discussion outside the Chamber.

Medical Litigation: Impact on Medical Innovation

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 15th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend makes an extremely important point. Our policy is that it is right that NHS patients who are injured as a result of clinical negligence should be able to obtain correct and full compensation. Under the current system, compensation is in general paid only where legal liability can be established. The underlying principles are clear cut and enshrined in common law.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the only bar to surgeons introducing new surgical procedures is that they subject them to external audit to make sure that they do not harm patients?

[Earl Howe]

As far as I am aware, the noble Lord is absolutely right. That is a very important point.

Medicine: Experimental Drugs

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 10th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, this will very much depend on a case-by-case analysis of the drug in question. If there is a very promising new drug that is a breakthrough medicine, where there is no alternative treatment, there may be a case for considering that more favourably than a drug for which there is a readily suitable alternative. As I mentioned earlier, the menu of options available to us, such as an early access scheme for unlicensed medicines and an adaptive licensing scheme within European Union rules for licensed medicines, can perhaps be tailor-made to suit the drug in question.

[Lord Patel]

Does the Minister agree that there are two separate issues: one is doctors’ and nurses’ ability to prescribe off-label drugs, which is allowed, and for which the doctor takes responsibility; and the second is using a drug that might be promising for treatment and doing research on it, which requires research protocol to be followed? Neither is permissible under current regulations.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right that the two issues are distinct. It has always been the case that a doctor can, under his or her own professional responsibility, in certain circumstances, prescribe an unlicensed medicine. However, he is also correct that clinical trials need to take place within a framework of proper ethical and organisational approval.

Care Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 10th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I support Amendments 38 and 41 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg. I slightly disagree, which is difficult to do, with the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. In the new world, postgraduate deans are responsible not just for medical education, but for the whole of health education. If Health Education England is to be a body that influences education and training from the beginning to the end—we will come to another amendment relating to continuous professional development—postgraduate deans and deans of medical and nursing schools are crucial. If they are not to be represented on the local education and training boards, Health Education England cannot, through its committee, influence any of the innovations in education and training. That would be wrong.

There are examples where postgraduate deans and deans of medical and nursing schools are represented on education and training boards and they work fantastically well. I cannot see any reason why postgraduate deans and deans of nursing and medical schools could not be represented on local education and training boards, no matter what their size. I support the amendment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, this is a really useful short debate. I begin by saying that members of the Committee should not feel anxious; I feel that there is a degree of anxiety which needs to be allayed.

Local health providers and their clinical leaders have told us that they are well placed to understand the changing shape of services and the way in which their workforce must respond to deliver high-quality services to patients. They are able to link workforce planning to service and financial planning, something that has not always been done well in the past and which has contributed to failings in workforce planning.

Following consultation, we have chosen to give local education and training boards a statutory basis as committees of Health Education England. But the policy intent, reflected in the Bill, is that they are not mere local delivery arms of a national body. Rather, they are a key part of decentralising power, so for the first time, the providers of health services will have clear responsibility and accountability for the planning, commissioning and quality management of education and training for their workforce.

The mandate to the Health Education England special health authority includes a clear objective to support more autonomous local decision-making on behalf of local communities. A critical measure of the success of Health Education England at national level will be the effectiveness with which its engagement with the LETBs and employers results in greater responsibility and accountability for workforce development being taken by employers at local level.

At the same time, with localism comes accountability. HEE will need to hold LETBs to account for their investment in education and training and delivery against key priorities. Of course, there needs to be co-ordination in the approach to planning and delivering education and training. That is why the Government, and the vast majority of stakeholders, believe that we have got the balance right in establishing Health Education England as a national leadership organisation for education and training, with local providers securing greater autonomy and accountability through the LETBs. There will always be national level priorities and objectives for workforce development and, rightly, Ministers want reassurance through Health Education England that they are being addressed, but the policy intent is to do that in a way that strikes a balance between the national and the more local perspectives.

Amendment 22 is intended to ensure that duties under Clause 86 extend to the LETBs. I appreciated the balanced comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and wholeheartedly agree that local education and training boards, given a statutory basis as committees of Health Education England, should support Health Education England in the delivery of key national duties, including those in Clause 86. As commissioners of education and training, Health Education England and the LETBs will work with education partners, service providers and professional regulators to ensure that the education and training that is provided in education institutions and in health service settings continually improves and delivers health professionals who are fit for purpose and who meet the needs of employers, patients and service users.

We have already discussed the importance of research and the role that local education and training boards can play in supporting the diffusion of research and innovation. By promoting the NHS constitution through its workforce planning and education and training activities, HEE and the LETBs will help to ensure that staff develop the correct values and behaviours to practise in the NHS and the public health system.

Amendment 47 would amend Clause 92 to place an obligation on Health Education England to provide guidance on how it will ensure that providers of health services co-operate with local education and training boards. Clause 92 builds on an existing duty introduced by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which places a legal obligation on commissioners to make arrangements with providers to secure their co-operation with the Secretary of State on education and training. The purpose of that duty is to ensure co-operation with the local education and training board to support workforce planning activities, the provision of workforce information and the delivery of education and training to healthcare workers. That is an important step in ensuring that the system is well integrated and that all providers play their part in supporting essential education and training activity.

To emphasise that, and in answer to a question put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, Clause 92 provides that regulations,

“must require specified commissioners ... to include in the arrangements under the National Health Service Act 2006 ... terms to ensure that”,

providers co-operate with the LETB.

The Government have already put in place measures to deliver the duty in the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which came into effect on 1 April 2013, by amending the commissioning contracts and supporting regulations for the delivery of services, so that they now require co-operation on education and training.

It will be the regulations rather than any guidance which will set out how the duty is to be implemented. The level of co-operation, the information requested and the obligations required may vary over time. It is therefore more appropriate to enable this level of administrative and procedural detail to be set by regulations rather than in the Bill.

Turning next to Amendments 38, 41 and 50, as we have previously discussed, it is important that Health Education England and the LETBs have access to people with expertise and knowledge on education and training matters. The postgraduate deans have great knowledge and expertise and, through the local education and training boards, they are now an integral part of the new system, working alongside other colleagues to strengthen the multidisciplinary approach to planning and developing the workforce. It is important to remember here that Health Education England and the LETBs have responsibility for the education and training of all the professions. Although medical training is a very important element of their functions, the LETBs have a much broader focus.

Care Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 10th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I probably expressed the position less than well because I was seeking to indicate that CPD is inescapable. There are a whole host of reasons why providers and the LETBs cannot avoid a focus on continuing professional development. Equally, we do not want to prescribe any kind of ring-fenced budget for CPD, for the reasons we debated earlier: we are clear that we must leave it to LETBs to exercise autonomy in the way that they work out their local education and training plans. They will have to prioritise, inevitably, in certain cases and from year to year. It may be that they will have to make hard choices. The great thing about Health Education England is that, as a non-departmental public body separate from NHS England, it will have a dedicated budget which cannot be eroded by those who might wish to siphon money off to patient care, for example. I hope that, in that sense, the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, can take some comfort. We are very clear that the prescription is there and that local providers cannot avoid addressing the needs of their employees for CPD, but at the same time we do not want to dictate to them how much to spend on this in any one year.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I have no doubt whatever that he speaks with conviction and is full of good intentions. However, the way in which he spoke makes me feel that he, too, has some doubt that local providers and employers will deliver on this. If LETBs do not have any duty even to collect information about continuing professional development, local providers may not take any notice of the issue; there will be that variability in their reactions to which the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, referred. However, I have no doubt that the Minister and the department have the intention that this will be delivered. We will reflect on that. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Health: Cancer

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 20th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a good point. When recording the cause of death on a medical certificate of cause of death, doctors are required to start with the immediate, direct cause of death and then go back through the sequence of events or conditions that led to death until they reach the one that started the fatal sequence. This initiating condition will usually be selected as the underlying cause of death according to the International Classification of Diseases coding. However, that does not mean that someone with a primary cause of death of cancer will not have pneumonia, or whatever it happens to be, recorded somewhere on the death certificate.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that as we progress with the current research into the molecular tagging of drugs that have the same molecular make-up as the cancer itself and nanomedicine we will be better able to target cancer tissue while leaving normal tissue alone? That will save lives lost to the complications related to treatment.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I agree, and I am confident that over the years ahead we will see a much greater emphasis on stratified medicine, particularly if we can relate treatments to genomic data.

NHS: ECMO Machines

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 22nd April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, there is, I understand, no intervention capable of restoring heart function some hours after a heart attack. The only exception is not applicable to heart attacks but to people who have had circulatory arrest due to hypothermia—for example, people who have been buried in avalanches or immersed in very cold water. That area is currently being researched. It is only in a very limited number of circumstances that ECMO support can improve a patient’s chances of survival following cardiac arrest—usually in patients who suffer in-hospital cardiac arrest following surgery.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, as the noble Earl indicated in his opening remarks, a typical facility required in the provision of a service such as ECMO for adults who suffer acute myocardial infarction would include a perfusionist, intensive care facilities, an intervention cardiologist, a cardiologist expert in cardiac failure, a cardiac surgeon, together with specialist nurses. Preliminary results of studies suggest that the survival rate might be less than 30%. Does the noble Earl agree that more research is needed before such a treatment can be made available routinely?

[Earl Howe]

I fully agree. The noble Lord is quite right. ECMO cannot be provided by just any ICU team. It is a highly specialised treatment with significant potential for serious complications, and considerable expertise is therefore required, including having a multidisciplinary team of the kind that he outlined. In general, capacity has much more to do with having suitably trained staff than with having the equipment itself.

Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust Inquiry

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it was a signal feature of the Francis report that he consciously avoided pointing the finger at individuals. The chief executive of the NHS did not have the finger of blame pointed at him. The House may be interested to know that I regard Sir David Nicholson as a truly outstanding public servant who has done an enormous amount of good for the NHS since becoming chief executive.

The benefit of hindsight is wonderful but we must remember that in the years in which these dreadful events took place the National Health Service was held to account by reference to two main indicators: access to care and waiting times, and finance. Above all, it was the arrival of the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, as a Minister and the Secretaries of State whom he served that saw the transformation of the NHS from an organisation that was concerned just about numbers into one that really appreciated that quality matters. Therefore, to accuse those with positions of responsibility with regard to Mid Staffs of overlooking the fact that quality was poor is to place a wholly unfair retrospective expectation on them.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, a great deal of importance and emphasis is being placed on introducing zero harm with regard to patient safety. I am delighted that the Government have asked Don Berwick to advise them how to do this. Do the Government intend to have zero harm in the NHS as a concept or as a requirement? If it is the latter, what legal framework will make that happen?

[Earl Howe]

It is much more a question of culture than anything else. However, the noble Lord will be aware that Robert Francis recommended that we look at the concept of fundamental standards below which care should never fall. We are determined to do that. Defining a fundamental standard is something for wide discussion. However, we take this recommendation very seriously. Robert Francis was clear that if individuals or an organisation were found guilty of breaching fundamental standards, serious consequences should ensue.

On a more general level, it is impossible to expect human beings never to make a mistake or never to fall down on the job. The point here is to create an attitude of mind in all those who work for and with the NHS that puts the patient’s well-being at the centre of their daily lives and thinking. That is where we want to be.

Health: Cancer Drugs Fund

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble Baroness raises another important point about orphan drugs and indeed ultra-orphan drugs as they are termed—drugs which are efficacious and helpful for patients with very rare conditions. It is likely that we will need to put special arrangements in place for the pricing of those drugs. Overall, however, I agree with the noble Baroness that the cancer drugs fund has been immensely helpful. So far, since October 2010, the funding has helped more than 28,000 patients in England to access the cancer drugs that their clinicians recommended, which they would not have done otherwise.

[Lord Patel]

Will the Minister confirm that whatever new arrangements are put in place will be on the same principle and basis as the current cancer drugs fund?

[Earl Howe]

I cannot confirm that we will replicate the current cancer drugs fund in its entirety—no decision has been taken—but we are clear about the principle behind the fund. The reason for creating it in the first place was to help the thousands of cancer patients and clinicians who were having difficulty accessing some cancer drugs mainly as a result of funding constraints. I assure the noble Lord that we will continue to retain that thought very much at the front of our minds.

Health: Cardiology

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords—

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, will the Minister explain a little bit more about the proposed public consultation on screening? The evidence for the screening of families where a cardiac death has occurred, particularly in a young person—which is linked to a gene—is conclusive, so what is the public consultation about?

[Earl Howe]

The public consultation is reviewing the policy position on screening for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, but the noble Lord is absolutely right that better identification of families who are at high risk of inherited cardiac conditions is vital. That is stressed in the cardiovascular strategy.

Medical Research: International Rare Diseases Research Consortium

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Thursday 28th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to my noble friend and I extend my sympathies to his wife. Unfortunately, with many very rare diseases, it often takes a great deal of time for a fully fledged diagnosis to be arrived at. I welcome the suggestion put forward by Rare Disease UK for co-ordinators and we will certainly look at that idea positively. I can tell him that the imperative to look at rare developmental disorders in children is the focus of a project that the NIHR and the Wellcome Trust are funding through the Sanger Institute in Cambridge. Scientists are analysing the genomes of 12,000 children with developmental disorders who could not be diagnosed following routine genetic evaluation. We are hopeful that that will produce some interesting results.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that my university is involved in finding treatments for some rare diseases. An international collaboration has set the ambitious goal of finding treatments for 200 rare diseases by 2020. One of the important research areas has already been mentioned, which is the sequencing of the genome of patients with rare diseases. The other area, which alludes to the question asked by the noble Lord about the care of those patients, is that of finding new diagnostics so that we can diagnose those diseases early. What are we doing through the NIHR or through biomedical research centres to encourage the development of new diagnostics for those diseases?

Diabetes

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Thursday 10th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, there is no single magic bullet that will solve this problem, but undoubtedly better monitoring in general practice is one answer; the QOF incentivises that. The NHS outcomes framework will also incentivise clinical commissioning groups to ensure that those with long-term conditions—particularly diabetes—are properly looked after. The benefits of multidisciplinary teams are now proven. The evidence is there and, if we can shine a spotlight on the statistics—and there is, as the noble Lord knows, a wide variation in success rates across the country—that will be the key to driving better performance throughout the health service.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that part of the problem is that while the NICE guidelines, if implemented throughout the country, would reduce the variation rate in amputations, particularly of lower limb extremities, it is not mandatory to implement those guidelines? He may be aware that several nations, including Scotland, have recently reported a reduction of 30% in the amputation rate, following strict protocols in diabetic management.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, there are centres of excellence throughout the United Kingdom, from which I am sure the health service as a whole can learn. The noble Lord is absolutely right. He mentions the NICE guidelines; he is right that they are not mandatory, but they do point to best practice. By highlighting the data, we can ensure that commissioners and practitioners ask themselves the right questions about whether best practice is being followed.

NHS: Research and Development

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I do agree with the noble Lord. Before the creation of the NIHR, research allocations to NHS hospitals were made essentially on a historical basis, with no assessment of quality or value and no ability for the funding to move in response to competition. The NIHR undoubtedly changed all that. The NHS funding for research is now awarded transparently and competitively and robust systems are in place to ensure that it is used only to support research rather than being diverted for other purposes.

[Lord Patel]

Does the Minister agree that the biomedical research centres established by NIHR funding are more likely to develop and deliver on the Government’s innovation strategy in health science and on the life sciences strategy?

[Earl Howe]

I agree with the noble Lord. The Government are providing a record £800 million over five years for NIHR biomedical research centres and units as from April of this year. The centres are based within the most outstanding NHS and university partnerships in the country; they are leaders in scientific translation; and they will play an integral part in the life sciences strategy which the Government published last year.

NHS: Clinical Networks

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, strategic clinical networks are only one category of network in the new system. There is nothing to stop professional groups coming together to share best practice and support professional development. In addition, clinical commissioning groups may well wish to establish networks to support local priorities and ways of working; and providers may use a network model to enable the joint delivery of a service, such as pathology. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, rightly referred to the extent to which local providers and commissioners already support strategic clinical networks. So there is a variety of ways of doing this.

[Lord Patel]

Does the Minister recognise that reducing funding for cancer networks will lead to a reduction in staff and therefore a reduction in the effectiveness of cancer networks?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, Professor Sir Mike Richards, the national cancer director, said the other day:

“Although cancer networks will have a smaller proportion of the budget in the future, there are still backroom efficiencies that can be made to make things work more effectively. Increasing the footprint of each network will make them more cost-efficient”.

I have spoken to him personally and he is confident that the available budget can still be used to ensure that there is at least equal cost-effectiveness of networks.

Health: Mental Health

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my noble friend makes an important point, and I can reassure him on that. I know that he is concerned that IAPT services may be displacing other psychological therapies. In fact, having looked into this, I can tell him that data from the NHS finance mapping exercise shows that IAPT services are not displacing other therapies; I have figures here to prove that. Spending on non-IAPT psychological therapies has reduced very slightly, by just over 5%, but the overall picture is one of a dramatic expansion in the availability and range of psychological therapies.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, as the mover of the amendment that put equality of mental and psychical health in legislation, I am pleased that the Government did not contest it again—albeit that it was won by a Division. I am also pleased that mental health is to be treated equally in the mandate.

[Lord Patel]

I am coming to the question which is important. Having put it in the mandate, would it not now be right for the department to ask the Commissioning Board to produce a framework outcome for mental health so it can assess progress in treatment equality for mental health?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we expect the equal priority for mental and physical health to be reflected in all relevant aspects of the NHS’s work. There can be no single measure of parity. As I said earlier, we expect the board to be able to demonstrate measureable progress towards parity by 2015. However, there are some specific areas where we expect progress; for example, relevant measures from the NHS outcomes framework, including reducing excess mortality of people with severe mental illness; delivering the IAPT programme in full and extending it further; addressing unacceptable delays, and significantly improving access and waiting times; and working with others to support vulnerable and troubled families. Those are very detailed objectives for the board, all of which bear upon the key question of parity between mental and physical health.

Health: Cancer

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I absolutely accept that one of the benefits we have seen from the clinical networks is the spread of innovative best practice through the health service, particularly in local areas. That is very much what we wish to preserve. The networks will help local commissioners of NHS care to reduce unwarranted variation in services and encourage innovation. We are determined to see that continue.

[Lord Patel]

As the Minister responsible for quality outcomes in healthcare, will the noble Earl report to the House on whether he is monitoring the effects on cancer outcomes of the reduction in the staffing of cancer networks?

[Earl Howe]

We will certainly be monitoring the outcomes in the field of cancer, but I would just like to impress upon the noble Lord that the creation of the clinical support teams—the network support teams—will ensure that the whole service is more efficiently delivered. By having 12 support teams there to underpin all the networks, we will ensure that we have a more cost-effective system.

NHS: Women Doctors

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the Government fully support flexible working. We encourage organisations to take account of the recommendation made by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on that subject and adopt working arrangements that are amenable both to doctors who are parents and doctors who are carers.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, first, I declare an interest. In my family there are four women doctors—I do not call them “girls”. They are all higher achievers than I could ever be. Does the Minister agree that there are in some of the most demanding specialties more women doctors in higher positions than in some of the other specialties and that in the specialties where there are not, it is the attitude of the senior doctors—possibly even male doctors—that is the problem?

[Earl Howe]

I discussed this subject in my briefing with departmental officials. There are multiple and quite complex barriers to career progression, including a conflict of roles between someone’s clinical responsibilities and their domestic responsibilities. There are structural barriers, as I have mentioned, in relation to part-time work, and in terms of general practice there is the sessional GP contract, which is another barrier to progression. The lack of role models is a factor and we should not overlook individual and organisational mind-sets, to which the noble Lord alluded, which result in lower personal aspiration in this area.

Care Services: Elderly People

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is the responsibility of the employing organisation to carry out appropriate checks on the people they intend to employ. They should take decisions in the context of their responsibility for the well-being of the people who use the service. That position has not changed, and indeed it must be at the core of the safeguarding agenda. Organisations need to risk-assess the suitability of their staff for the role, considering all the information they have on the person, including criminal record checks. If someone has a criminal conviction, the employer should consider how old and relevant that conviction is in the context of the activities that the person would be undertaking and the characteristics of the people they would be looking after. That situation cannot, I think, change substantively.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, will the Minister follow up on the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt? What progress is his department making towards establishing skills requirements in the training and regulation of nurse support workers and care assistants?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we recognise that there is a need to drive up standards in this area. More care workers will be trained, including an ambition to double the number of care apprenticeships by 2017. We have commissioned Skills for Health and Skills for Care to develop, before the end of January next year, a code of conduct and minimum training standards for healthcare support workers and adult social care workers in England. We expect that these will cover minimum training or induction standards for a range of support tasks, including personal care and other activities. Through the Health and Social Care Act 2012 we are creating a system of external quality assurance for voluntary registers.

Care Homes

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is true that CQC inspectors found that for the kind of services they inspected, there was more non-compliance in services run by the private sector. But the information the CQC gathered for its report does not enable it to analyse the reasons for that. I would simply say that all providers of services, whether in the independent sector or the NHS, need to ensure that they comply with essential standards. The noble Baroness summarised a number of the areas where the CQC found failings and I endorse her view that there is a fundamental failing across the system, not just in providers but in terms of commissioning as well. The examples of poor care show up a fundamental need for commissioners to review commissioning plans and care plans, and make sure not just that the providers are capable of offering and providing care to the right standards but that they are actually doing so at the right level for the patients and service users they look after.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords—

Health Research Authority (Amendment) Regulations 2012

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, my apologies to the Minister. I was not quick enough to get up. First, I welcome this order, which establishes the Health Research Authority. Like the noble Lords who have already spoken, I ask when we will have further legislation defining all the roles of the Health Research Authority. Can the noble Earl also confirm that this new authority will be required to give ethical approval to all research, no matter how it was funded? I am particularly keen to find out whether research that might be funded by individual trusts or, for that matter, by the department will also come under the ethical scrutiny of the Health Research Authority. Will the authority at this point be promoting research from the NHS, as the new NHS Act requires the foundation trusts and the commissioners to do?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for setting out so helpfully the intended roles for the Health Research Authority, which, I think by common consent, is a very positive move forward. It has got off to a solid start. I am grateful to him as well for giving us the opportunity to debate these instruments. They are the second of three steps in the establishment of the Health Research Authority. They amend instruments, laid last year, that established the Health Research Authority in December 2011 as a special health authority with an executive board. That was the first step in fulfilling the Government’s commitment in the March 2011 Plan for Growth to create a new body to streamline the approvals for health research, following an independent review of health research regulation and governance by the Academy of Medical Sciences.

The Health Research Authority was initially constituted with an executive-only board to allow it to begin work quickly on its important agenda. We were able to make suitable interim ex officio appointments from among the initial staff who transferred in.

The instruments that we are debating today provide for the Health Research Authority to have a chair and non-officer members as well, so that it has greater independence and credibility to perform its functions for the purpose of protecting and promoting the interests of patients and the public in health research. That is the second step.

Health and Social Care Act 2012

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it will be conducted by the Health Select Committee of another place. The process is that the Department of Health will submit a memorandum to the Health Select Committee and that memorandum will include a preliminary assessment of how the Act has worked out in practice relative to the objectives and benchmarks identified during the passage of the Bill.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, the noble Earl said in response to the Question of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that in the interim period the department will be undertaking scrutiny of the work of the bodies set up. Can he tell the House how the results of that scrutiny will be reported to Parliament?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the performance of the health service will be very visible as we go along: we will have the NHS Commissioning Board producing its annual report; each clinical commissioning group will be publishing an annual report; directors of public health must produce an annual report; the Secretary of State has to report annually on the overall performance of the health service; and HealthWatch England has to publish an annual report. So there will be no shortage of transparency along the way.

Health: Pancreatic Cancer

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 23rd April 2012 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for tabling today’s debate. I am aware that this is a very important issue for him and for countless other people and families across the country. The coalition Government’s cancer outcome strategy was published in January last year. It sets out how we will make sure that people with any form of cancer get care and outcomes as good as anywhere in the world, whoever they are and wherever in the country they live.

Probably the most important factor affecting the survival rates of any cancer is the speed with which it is diagnosed—I think all noble Lords mentioned that issue. We have addressed that in the cancer outcome strategy, and that is why we are supporting the strategy with more than £450 million over four years. This funding is part of more than £750 million of additional funding for cancer over the spending review period to support our ambitions for cancer care. On top of that, or course, a range of support is already available to help GPs assess when it is appropriate to refer patients for investigations for suspected cancer, such as a NICE referral guideline. However, we can do more to support them.

Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Action Team are working together to develop a new GP engagement programme for the coming years that will allow them to increase awareness and improve training. This will all help diagnose cancer cases earlier. I can say to my noble friend Lord Selborne that Professor Willie Hamilton is currently developing a risk assessment tool to support GPs in the investigation of pancreatic cancer.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, asked if the National Awareness and Early Diagnosis Initiative could do some specific work on pancreatic cancer. Our cancer outcome strategy says that we will work with a number of charities linked with rarer cancers. There have already been meetings with several, including Pancreatic Cancer UK and Pancreatic Cancer Action, to see what more might be done to diagnose these cancers earlier. The Government’s future work on pancreatic cancer will be informed by what we learn from those charities.

I am aware also that Pancreatic Cancer UK is hosting an early diagnosis workshop in June. The National Cancer Director, Professor Sir Mike Richards, my honourable friend the Minister of State for Care Services and officials from NAEDI will be attending. The workshop will be looking at practical steps that can be taken to help GPs and secondary care health professionals diagnose pancreatic cancer at the earliest stage possible. We look forward to receiving the findings of the workshop.

My noble friend Lord Sharkey and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, talked about the possibility of awareness campaigns. Decisions on campaign work in this financial year will be based on the evidence from the pilots that we have run regionally in 2011-12. To further address the need to improve awareness of rarer cancers such as pancreatic cancer, consideration is being given to piloting a symptom-based awareness campaign based on covering multiple cancers. We are talking with stakeholders, including rarer cancer charities, about that work.

Once pancreatic cancer is diagnosed, patients need to have access to appropriate and consistent treatment, delivered to a high standard, across the board. I am aware that there are variations in survival rates across the country and across cancer networks. Pancreatic Cancer UK’s Study for Survival 2011 confirmed that. Quite simply, it is not good enough and it must change. That is why we are providing data to help the National Health Service tackle regional variations. For example, the National Cancer Intelligence Network has made available data collections on survival rates and surgical resection rates across a range of cancers, including pancreatic cancer. These data will allow providers and commissioners to benchmark their services and outcomes against one another and to identify where improvements need to be made. They will then be able to channel resources into improving services in the areas that need to be brought up to an acceptable standard.

The noble Lord asked whether we would develop an audit of pancreatic service and care. The National Advisory Group on Clinical Audit and Enquiries recently considered a proposal for an audit of pancreatic cancer as part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme. I understand that the proposal was not recommended for inclusion in the national programme. However, the advisory group suggested that elements of the proposal could be taken forward as part of the existing bowel cancer audit when this is retendered in 2012. I will ensure that this option is considered when the department reviews the existing arrangements for the bowel cancer audit later this year.

In Improving Outcomes: A Strategy for Cancer—First Annual Report, published in December last year, we said that continuing to provide the NHS with benchmarked data,

“as a lever for improvements”,

is a priority for 2012.

Of course, a hugely important element in all this is the patient experience, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, referred. In December 2010, we published the report of the 2010 cancer patient experience survey, which recorded the views of more than 67,000 cancer patients across 158 trusts. The survey showed that 90 per cent of patients with an upper gastrointestinal cancer, which includes pancreatic cancer, reported having a clinical nurse specialist. The survey also showed that cancer patients who had support from a clinical nurse specialist had a better overall experience of care. We expect the National Health Service to consider this in developing its policies to improve patient experience. A 2011 survey is now in progress. We will be looking closely at the results of the survey to see where improvements have been made and where more needs to be done.

Research featured large in this debate, including in the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, my noble friends Lord St John of Bletso and Lord Sharkey, the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and others. The National Institute for Health Research is making a significant contribution to the search for scientific breakthroughs in pancreatic cancer. The institute’s clinical research network is currently hosting 17 studies of pancreatic cancer and is recruiting patients as we speak. In August 2011, the Government announced £6.5 million of funding for the Liverpool biomedical research unit for gastrointestinal disease. About half this investment will support pancreatic cancer research. The NIHR clinical research network, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, is currently hosting 17 trials and other well designed studies in pancreatic cancer that are recruiting patients. In 2010-11, a total of 687 patients were recruited to pancreatic cancer studies hosted by the CRN. The National Cancer Research Institute’s upper-gastrointestinal clinical studies group is dedicated to developing a portfolio of research studies in pancreatic cancer, and has a pancreatic cancer subgroup, which has developed a number of internationally run trials. That is a cause for some encouragement.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, referred to the research involving processed meat. She is right; Swedish research published in the British Journal of Cancer in January 2012 said that two rashers of bacon or one sausage a day increases the risk of pancreatic cancer by 20 per cent. There is also a link with bowel cancer. The department urges everybody to have a balanced diet. As with other forms of cancer, higher consumption of fruit and vegetables seems to be protective, but I will write to the noble Baroness if I have any further information on that subject.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, referred to new cancer drugs. Our priority is to ensure that cancer patients get the drugs that their doctors believe are best for them. We have delivered on our promise in the coalition agreement for a cancer drugs fund, with £650 million, all told, devoted to it. This funding has so far helped more than 12,500 cancer patients in England to access the cancer drugs that their clinicians recommend. We have listened to feedback on the first year of the fund’s operation, and today are publishing new guidance on the cancer drugs fund, which will further speed up access for patients. The new guidance makes it clear that patients will not normally need to go through the primary care trust funding processes prior to applying to the fund. In most cases, it will mean that patients are able to access drugs within a matter of days of an application being made to the fund. In the longer term, our intention is to introduce a system of value-based pricing for new drugs, with the aim of enabling patients to have greater access to effective and innovative new medicines. The whole premise of value-based pricing is to ensure that the price of a drug will be linked much more closely to its assessed value. It will bring the price that the NHS pays more into line with the value that a new medicine delivers.

My noble friend Lady Jolly asked about that. She also asked about mechanisms in the Health and Social Care Act that might assist cancer patients. The main mechanism is the outcomes framework, which will of course pervade everything that the NHS Commissioning Board does in the way of commissioning guidance, and will inform the way that the commissioning outcomes framework is developed. She also asked about engagement with the royal colleges. Ministers are currently meeting representatives from the royal colleges on education and training—I do not think on pancreatic cancer specifically but certainly on the training of doctors.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, asked me a number of questions. The NHS outcomes framework— I pay tribute to the work of the All-Party Group on Cancer over a number of years—will be updated annually to ensure that the most appropriate measures are used for comprehensiveness, while recognising that we need to keep a broad continuity of indicators year on year. The refreshed NHS outcomes framework 2013-14 will be published alongside the mandate in the autumn. To support the ongoing development of the framework, we are in the process of establishing an independent technical advisory group that will provide advice to the department and the board about current indicators and proposals for new ones.

The noble Baroness asked about the national cancer patient experience survey. With the leave of the Committee, as there is a small amount of time left I propose to utilise it, unless there are any objections. In the first NHS outcomes framework we explained that the approach to Domain 4, which is patient experience, was evolutionary and the initial set of improvement areas for this domain was drawn from existing nationally co-ordinated surveys or from surveys that would be available in 2011-12. Collectively, the improvement areas aim to achieve wide coverage of the interactions that people have with the NHS and focus on different features of patient-centred care. Future work will involve refining surveys and developing new questions and measures to allow existing indicators to be replaced over time as necessary.

With regard to cancer networks, we have already made clear that there is a role for clinical networks such as cancer networks in the reformed NHS, as a place where clinicians from different sectors come together to improve the quality of care across integrated pathways, and the cancer networks are a clear example of how that way of working delivers better quality. That is why the Secretary of State announced last May that we would continue to fund cancer networks this year and that, subject to legislation, the Commissioning Board will support strengthened cancer networks.

The noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, asked about quality standards. There is no intention to produce a quality standard for pancreatic cancer as such, but in future there will continue to be flexibility in the library of quality standards to take account of new and emerging priorities, should such need arise.

Our ultimate goal is to improve survival rates and the quality of life for those living with all cancers, including pancreatic cancer. There are many challenges to be overcome but they are not insurmountable. Because of the Health and Social Act, clinical commissioning groups will be free to pursue innovative ways of delivering care that bring better results for all patients, including those with pancreatic cancer, and NHS provider organisations will have the operational independence to determine how best to meet the needs of commissioners.

We have set five ambitious but measureable goals: to prevent people from dying prematurely from cancer; to improve the quality of life for people with cancer; to help people recover from episodes of ill health; to improve the experience of care; and to ensure that all patients are treated and cared for in a safe environment. We will continue to deliver on those goals.

[Lord Patel]

I am not sure if it is in order for me to do this, but I know that whatever the Minister says is taken as gospel, and he quoted a study from Sweden about the association of eating meat with pancreatic cancer. I do not know about the quality of that study, but it sounds surprising that that amount of meat-eating increases the risk of pancreatic cancer by 20 per cent. I presume that he was talking about relative risk, not absolute risk.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I will be happy to clarify that point in a letter.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I speak as somebody who has been involved with the National Patient Safety Agency for longer than the noble Lord, Lord Warner, as a Minister, or the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, as its chairman, as I chaired it for four years. What is important is that the National Patient Safety Agency, as it is currently, has been unable to be effective. It has not been effective because it is not mandatory to adopt, implement or use the learning produced from the reports it receives from all healthcare providers on systems failures that may cause harm to patients. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that whatever the new arrangements are, the learning produced from systems failures will be implemented, or will be expected to be implemented.

I do not know whether the Commissioning Board is the ideal place for it—I understand that it is taking over the group that looked after the analysis of the reports. Therefore, it will be its task to disseminate all the learning that comes from it. The actual collection of information or data will be outsourced on a contractual basis to Imperial College. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that. The important issues are that the information on systems failure is collected and that the lessons learnt are available to all those who commission and provide healthcare. They must be implemented.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I hope it goes without saying—I think that all noble Lords would agree—that patient safety has to be the key priority for all those working in the health service. We cannot allow it to be an add-on or an afterthought. For that reason, the Bill puts safety at the heart of the NHS, not at arm’s length. Currently, the National Patient Safety Agency’s core function is to improve the safety of NHS care by promoting a culture of reporting and learning from adverse events. It does that, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, rightly mentioned, through its national reporting and learning system. As noble Lords are aware, it is our intention that Clause 22, or new Section 13Q, will give the NHS Commissioning Board responsibility for this function, including the collection of information about patient safety incidents, the analysis of that information and the sharing of the resulting learning with providers of NHS care—those who contract with clinical commissioning groups or directly with the board.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked whether it was sensible to do as we propose. Safety is, of course, a key domain of quality and we believe that the board, as the body legally responsible for ensuring continuous quality improvement in the NHS, will be best placed to drive a powerful safety agenda through the NHS. The board will use its leadership, expertise and oversight of the system, including oversight of the national reporting and learning system, to lead continuous quality and safety improvement. Its unique perspective would allow it to ensure that appropriate levers are used to drive safety improvement across the system, based on the needs of the NHS. Embedding safety across the system is vital to increase the pace of development, and it is the intention that the patient safety function will be conferred on the shadow body—the NHS Commissioning Board authority—in June of this year.

It is intended that the operational management of the NPSA’s national reporting and learning system will transfer on a temporary basis to Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust on 1 April 2012. From April, Imperial College will manage the team responsible for the existing NRLS function for a temporary period of two years. During the two-year period a full tendering process will be developed by the NHS Commissioning Board that is intended to identify the future specification of requirements for a national system to capture and analyse patient safety incident data.

Within the board there will be a patient safety team of around 40 staff led by the director of patient safety and bringing together policy, insight, advice and guidance. The arm’s-length bodies review recommended the abolition of the National Patient Safety Agency. It made clear that the agency’s functions, while necessary within a system supporting wider quality and safety improvement, did not need to be performed at arm’s length. For me, one of the key arguments for making this change is that the National Patient Safety Agency did not have the authority or position to exploit fully the information gained from the national reporting and learning system. In contrast, the board will have the necessary authority and be positioned at the very heart of the system, and therefore be better placed to lead and drive improvements.

The noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Warner, questioned whether the board was actually the right body. I understand the noble Lords’ concerns regarding the independence of the NRLS, but I feel as well that the board will prove to do an excellent job. In particular, it is worth remembering the board’s specific duty with regard to this in new Section 13Q.

As regards conflicts of interest, the NPSA is not being placed within the Commissioning Board as an ALB organisation; it is being abolished. We are putting safety at the heart of the NHS. The NHS Commissioning Board will assume responsibility for securing some functions of the patient safety division of the NPSA relating to reporting and learning from patient safety incidents so that we can embed patient safety into the health service through commissioning and the contracts that commissioners agree with providers. If incident reports suggest that commissioning is the problem, this would be picked up by the system.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, asked me what the proposals will mean in the context of the devolved Administrations. There is provision in the Bill for the NHS Commissioning Board to make information on reporting and learning available to others as it deems appropriate. Such information may be shared with devolved Administrations, and the board will have powers to enter into agreements with them to provide services.

The noble Lord, Lord Patel, asked who would be responsible for making the information available and acted upon. The board will have responsibility for provision of all appropriate guidance and advice. It is for the board to determine how best to ensure that this information is made available, particularly in the NHS. Clinical commissioning groups must have regard to that advice and ensure, through their contracts with providers or otherwise, that appropriate steps are taken to reduce risks and secure the safety of patients. The board would have to ensure that the advice and guidance that it provides is effective. The Bill also provides the board with the ability to deliver any of these functions through those that it considers best placed to maximise safety.

Patients rightly expect that any service provided through NHS funding will be safe, and making the board responsible for the key functions on safety will place responsibility for the safety of care where it should be—at the centre of the NHS. In saying that, however, I pay tribute to the positive contribution made by the National Patient Safety Agency and to make clear that its abolition is not at all to belittle its functions. It is, rather, a consequence of ensuring that vital functions are carried out in the best place in the new system. I believe that this is at the heart of the NHS—with the board—rather than at arm’s length.

I hope that I have sufficiently reassured the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I do not know whether the Bill is adequate for its intention. I did not think for one minute that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, was trying to insert a Bill into a Bill; he is trying merely to highlight the need for some commitment to social care in a Bill that has “health and social care” in its Title but not much about social care in it. Successive Governments have talked about integrated health and social care but have failed to achieve it. For the first time, we have a Bill with the Title “Health and Social Care”, but with no mention at all of social care. To indicate some commitment to its delivery, if not now then at a later stage, would have been adequate. Delivering integrated health and social care should have the same commitment to it as delivering improved waiting times for acute care.

We tried to get commissioning as a way of integrating health and social care. It would have been a better way forward, but unfortunately that amendment was narrowly defeated. This amendment asks only that the Government commit to making continuous efforts to reduce barriers to integrated health and social care. I do not think that it is inadequate or that it inserts a new Bill into the Bill.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, this has been a thoughtful debate. At the outset, it is appropriate for me to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, for his strong advocacy of the need to improve the quality and funding of social care services. The noble Lord played a critical role as part of the Dilnot commission and has made strong speeches both today and in Committee on this subject.

I am in complete agreement that high-quality social care services are crucial for the health and well-being of the population. As the Government and many others have said, major reform in adult social care is long overdue. We recognise the need for lasting reform to respond to the challenges facing social care. The recent engagement exercise, Caring for our Future: Shared Ambitions for Care and Support, conducted from September to December last year, highlighted again the scale of the challenges. We know that the quality of care is variable and can sometimes be poor, as recent high-profile failures have demonstrated. The current social care system does not support people to plan for their future care needs or maintain their well-being and independence. People often have a poor understanding of what social care is and of how to navigate the system and access the services they need.

All this is compounded by the well documented twin issues of an ageing society and financial constraint. This critical context explains why the Government have set the reform of adult social care as one their key priorities, but it also explains why social care reform merits it own focus and cannot be dealt with around the edges of discussions on another important topic. The Government are convinced that the time has come for social care reform. Given that, the question before us is not whether action should be taken to improve the quality of social care services but rather how we go about doing so.

I have given Amendment 163AA a good deal of consideration, and I am afraid that I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, that I do not feel it is the appropriate mechanism to achieve what he seeks. This is because, as well as reform being needed for social care quality and funding, there is broad consensus that social care law too needs extensive reform. The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, helpfully mentioned the Law Commission report on law reform, which put forward this argument last year. I wish to quote a short passage of the report, which states that,

“adult social care law has been the subject of countless piecemeal reforms … It is of little surprise that not only does the law perplex service users and social workers, but also the judiciary”.

This is the problem with the noble Lord’s amendment; to accept it would be to perpetuate exactly the same confusing and piecemeal approach against which the Law Commission argues. The legal framework for care and support needs fundamental reform, not further additions to an already opaque statute.

I wish to set out briefly what I see as the appropriate course of action on social care reform. We will publish a White Paper on care and support in spring this year. I repeat that undertaking, particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley. We will follow this by bringing forward legislation at the earliest opportunity. The White Paper will draw on multiple sources, including the excellent work of the Law Commission and the Commission on Funding of Care and Support, for which I again express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Warner. The White Paper will respond formally to the reports of both those commissions and, of course, to the Health Select Committee report on social care.

The noble Lord has proposed that a duty be placed on the Secretary of State to secure continuous improvement in the quality of social care. The Government’s proposals for embedding and safeguarding quality throughout social care will be a central theme for the White Paper. We sought views on this as part of the engagement; it highlighted that progress on quality has already been made with the publication of Transparency in Outcomes last year, which set out the Government’s approach on quality, transparency and outcomes in social care. Our approach to quality improvement is aimed at responding to poor quality, enabling improvement and rewarding best-quality services to support choice.

The ideal for social care is a sector filled with great people doing great jobs who deliver high-quality care to people using social care services. As I said, we are committed to publishing the White Paper this spring and preparations are on course. The Government are taking the broadest possible approach to achieving consensus on the most crucial long-term issues. Therefore, in that context, I do not believe that the time is right for an amendment of this sort. It would pre-empt the White Paper and could leave stakeholders unclear on the broader picture of social care reform.

Moreover—I see this as the central point—we do not want to make further changes to the existing statute when more lasting legal reform is already planned in the near future. Social care is a vital public service and deserves its own focus in its own statute. Too often, debates on social care have taken place on the margins of those on another issue.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am very grateful to my noble friend and agree with everything that she said. Many of the changes that the Government have made to the Bill—not just those made in your Lordships’ House but those that were made last year—have not been fully appreciated, or appreciated at all in some quarters. The changes that we have made are not sufficiently understood even by those who recognise that amendments have been made to the Bill. Without naming names, I have spoken to very senior members of the medical profession who have had no idea at all about some of the amendments that we have made to bring greater clarity to the Bill and change it substantively. As my noble friend knows, we did that in particular with Part 3 of the Bill. There is no doubt that there is a job of work to do to put over the correct messages to the medical profession and to reassure its members that this Bill does not represent a threat to them or to the NHS—quite the reverse.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, although many of the comments that have been made relate to amendments that have yet to be presented to the House, particularly to Part 3 of the Bill relating to competition, does the Minister agree that there are other amendments relating to other parts of the Bill that are of broad concern to people outside the House: namely, those relating to public health issues and how public health will be delivered, and that we also need to address those amendments?

[Earl Howe]

Of course, I acknowledge the point made by the noble Lord. It is a matter of regret to me that the commentary on the Bill hardly ever focuses on the proposals it makes for public health, which have generally commanded widespread approval. However, I recognise that there are concerns around the detail of those proposals. That is why we are here as a Chamber to address those concerns. I am sure that when we come to the amendments referred to by the noble Lord, this House will not be found wanting in the way that it explores those issues and resolves them.

Health: Smear Tests

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 13th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I should make clear that it is not budgetary constraints that have prevented a lowering of the age but clear clinical advice. However, my noble friend is right about uptake. We are working with the NHS cancer screening programmes and stakeholders to refine the information that we provide to women when they are invited for screening so that all are fully supported to make an informed choice to attend. To tackle the issue of low uptake among women, particularly younger women aged 25 to 29, the National Institute for Health Research health technology assessment programme has recently commissioned a study, the strategic trial, to determine which interventions are effective at increasing screening uptake among women receiving their first invitation from the programme. This is work in train and we await the results with interest.

[Lord Patel]

Does the Minister agree that what might be important for reducing the incidence of cervical cancer is not so much the age when the screening starts but the vaccination against HPV in younger girls? I understand that the uptake of that is now rising.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. One of the programmes initiated by the previous Government was the vaccination of girls aged 12 and 13. That programme is continuing and has very high uptake.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 13th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

That is a logical inference but, if I can get further and better particulars for the noble Lord, I would be happy to do so. Each local board will set up local advisory arrangements to reflect the breadth of local interest and ensure that its decisions are informed by clinicians, clinical networks and education providers. My noble friend Lord Willis and the noble Lord, Lord Winston, asked about “any qualified provider” and whether non-NHS providers will have to play their part. Yes, indeed; all providers of NHS services will be expected to participate in education and training activities, and Health Education England will invest only in organisations which do that. The answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is indeed yes. He is correct.

By April 2012, we expect the strategic health authorities to establish sub-committees that will develop the emerging local education and training boards. The role of strategic health authorities to lead on education and training has been extended until April next year. When Health Education England is fully functional as a special health authority from April 2013, it will then, as I have explained, take on the responsibility for hosting the local boards. There are plans for a safe and effective transition to the new system, which will ensure that the strategic health authority functions for education, training and workforce planning, including the work of the postgraduate deaneries, are continued. LETBs will take on these education and training functions and it is expected that many SHA and deanery staff will migrate to the local boards to ensure continuity and essential skills and knowledge for the future, subject to affordability.

As I emphasised in our earlier debate, postgraduate deans will continue to be a critical part of the medical training arrangements. We expect LETBs to be able to demonstrate that their postgraduate deans will be able to act independently so as to be able, among other things, to provide challenge where necessary—a point raised, quite rightly, by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. There will be systems and indicators in place to hold local education providers to account for the quality of education delivered by individual providers. Postgraduate deans will have all the powers that they have now to respond to any concerns about the quality of training, and to take action where required to improve standards and to assure the professional regulators, and indeed Health Education England, that poor performance is being tackled. In the new system, they will have support from the LETBs themselves and, if necessary, from Health Education England to challenge poor quality and behaviours.

Our proposed funding mechanisms reinforce that focus on quality by putting responsibility for education and training decisions in the right place, to be transparent so that funding follows the student on the basis of quality and value for money. The MPET budget will, as now, be predominantly provided to support the next generation of clinical and professional staff. Local boards will have some flexibility to invest in innovative approaches to continuing professional development and the education and training of the wider workforce. Health Education England will be responsible for developing a more transparent allocations policy for distributing education and training funding to local boards.

Now that the policy framework has been worked out, we need to push on and get the foundations of the new education and training system in place. We are doing that by establishing Health Education England and supporting the development of the emerging LETBs. It remains our intention to consolidate the functions of Health Education England by establishing it in primary legislation as a non-departmental public body. That will enable it to operate on a permanent statutory basis at arm’s length from the Department of Health while remaining accountable to the Secretary of State.

We want to do all this on the basis of consensus. We want to ensure that people with an interest have the opportunity to comment on and feed into the design of the new system, ahead of bringing forward the primary legislation in a second Bill. With that in mind, we intend to publish draft clauses on education and training for pre-legislative scrutiny in the second Session to ensure that the legislation is fit for purpose and to give Parliament an additional opportunity to scrutinise the proposals. I add that our vision for an education and training system that gives greater responsibility to employers and health professionals has been warmly welcomed.

As noble Lords will see, we have tabled amendments to strengthen links with the wider system. We have already discussed government Amendments 61 and 104, which would place duties on the board and on CCGs to promote education and training. These amendments were accepted in a previous debate. They are designed to ensure that commissioners of NHS services consider the planning, commissioning and delivery of education and training when carrying out their functions. The noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Warner, have tabled the very similar Amendments 62 and 106, and I hope that they will be reassured by the amendments that we have tabled and will feel able to withdraw them.

The noble Lord, Lord Patel, has tabled Amendment 13 on the role of providers. I say straight away that I am sympathetic to his intentions and I have given the amendment significant thought since it was first put down. In the beginning I thought that an amendment might not be needed, given that, in order to be established, LETBs will need to demonstrate that they meet robust authorisation criteria set by Health Education England, including demonstrating that all providers of NHS-funded services are fairly and properly represented in the LETB’s business.

At this point I shall answer the question posed by my noble friend Lord Mawhinney about the estimated costs of the amendment. I understand that Amendment 13 would be delivered by requiring commissioners to place a duty of this kind in their commissioning contracts. We do not anticipate any additional costs as a result of the amendment. Employers have told us and the Future Forum that they are keen to participate and play a leading role in the planning and commissioning of education and training through the LETBs, and of course we plan to legislate further for education and training, which will provide the opportunity to consider any duties that might be required of providers.

However, the amendment is satisfactorily drafted. In the light of what the noble Lord and others have said today in support of it, and in recognition of the strength of feeling on the issue, I can tell the noble Lord that I am willing to accept his proposal and support the amendment.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, how can I put this? I am enormously content with all the things that the Minister has said about Amendment 16, which was badly drafted and defective but he has answered all the questions. I hope that all noble Lords who supported me will feel content that he really has been helpful. As far as Amendment 13 is concerned, I would much rather win it this way than by going through the Lobbies. I thank him enormously.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 19th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 344 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. NICE should continue to do technology assessments or appraisals. It is not surprising that I should support the amendment, because I was closer to the establishment of NICE than most people may know, although I said so at Second Reading. It was a paper written when I was chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, to establish a national institute of clinical effectiveness, which led to the establishment of NICE as an institute of clinical excellence. At the same time as Mike Rawlins, a good friend for many years, started with NICE, I was involved in a similar exercise with SMC, its sister organisation in Scotland.

The key thing about both organisations is that, despite their appraisals of drugs, neither of them has been taken to court about their advice. That says something about the scientific veracity with which examinations are carried out. Although I have views that are sometimes slightly different from NICE—for example, I think that we will have to adjust in due course the QALY from £30,000 a year because we will find with drugs that are more expensive and effective that that price is too low—I go further and say not only that NICE should not be stopped from doing these appraisals but that its remit should be extended to biochemical tests, which should not be used in the NHS unless they are proven to be useful. As genomic medicine advances, more molecular and genetic tests will come on the market. It is already happening in the United States. Tests are used which are not found to be scientifically appropriate and marketed at a ridiculous price. I give the example of a test that is used to predict whether a person with a myocardial infarction will develop chronic heart failure. We use a much simpler test. They charge £8,000 for a test which must be done twice a year; we use a stethoscope to listen to the chest to see whether there are any bubbles in it. If there are not, the person is not in cardiac failure. It is as easy as that and every medical student is taught it. It will become even more important that an organisation that is as respected as NICE is given the task of assessing biochemical, molecular and genetic tests before they are implemented in the NHS, otherwise their cost will be enormous. Every marketing company will come along and say, “This test should be used”, as is happening in the United States. I would therefore extend NICE’s technology appraisal remit beyond drugs. It offers proven, scientifically driven assessments and I cannot see why we should stop them. Besides, we would see one part of the United Kingdom continuing while another part did not. I know that if NICE says a drug produced by a British pharma, particularly a big pharma, is not effective based on QUAL, it might be difficult for that pharma to market the same drug internationally, but that is an issue that needs to be tackled separately. Value-based pricing of drugs may be an area that we need to look at again, but not the appraisals.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I know that NICE is held in very high regard by noble Lords in the Committee. The Government share that view. That is why we are putting NICE on a firmer statutory footing in the Bill, extending its role to cover social care as well as healthcare and public health, and putting NICE quality standards at the heart of quality improvement. NICE will continue to play a key role in helping to ensure that decision-making in the NHS is robust and evidence-based.

The noble Lord, Lord Owen, said that the Bill gave the impression that NICE would turn into a kind of annex of the Department of Health. I can assure him that that is not the intention of the Government. A special health authority, as NICE technically is at the moment, is much closer in technical terms to the Department of Health than the non-departmental public body that we will set up. He also said that he felt that the additional responsibilities we were placing on NICE were inappropriate. When I have spoken to Sir Michael Rawlins, the chair of NICE, he does not take that view. He regards what we are doing as a vote of confidence in NICE, which is what it is intended to be.

There has been some confusion throughout the passage of the Bill about the detail of NICE’s future role. This may underlie some of the discussion we have had in the debate around the incorporation of NICE’s technology appraisals into quality standards. First, I can confirm that NICE will continue to appraise new drugs and technologies at least until we implement our plans for value-based pricing from 2014. The Bill enables us to provide for NICE to continue this important work when it is re-established.

As we develop our plans for value-based pricing of new branded medicines, NICE’s role in appraising drugs will inevitably evolve. However, we have been clear that we expect NICE to have a central role in the value-based pricing system, including in undertaking an assessment of the costs and benefits of different medicines. That is highly analogous to its current role. I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that we do not wish to lose—and certainly not downplay—the skills and scientific and analytical expertise that NICE undoubtedly has. We will make announcements on the precise shape of the value-based pricing model in due course but suffice to say for now that we believe that NICE is very well placed to fulfil the role of performing the pharmacoeconomic evaluation that will underpin the value-based pricing assessment.

Alongside that, NICE may also need to continue to undertake some technology appraisal activity after 2014—for example, to review existing recommendations in the light of new evidence or to assess important new non-drug technologies. It is quite wrong to suggest that we will cease that activity within NICE.

I also take the opportunity to reassure noble Lords that we will use powers in the Bill to replicate the effect of the funding direction which ensures that the NHS in England continues to fund drugs that have been recommended by NICE’s technology appraisal guidance. However, it would not be appropriate to place in the Bill such a requirement on clinical commissioning groups—as Amendment 344ZA would seek to do. That would leave no flexibility to alter the requirement in the event that there were clear practical barriers to implementation within three months of the final guidance. Amendments to the existing funding direction have only been made on a small number of occasions but it is important to retain that flexibility and secondary legislation supports this better than putting a requirement in the Bill.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, briefly, we are getting a bit confused between the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, which I support and is about anti-competitive behaviour, and people talking against competition. The amendment is quite clear. It asks Monitor, within a year, to identify barriers to quality care that are anti-competitive. The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, gave one example and there are others, such as optometry services, which can, if given the opportunity to expand, not only provide good diagnostic services but also treat some minor ailments that do not need referral to hospital. Our amendment is about anti-competitive behaviour. It is not about competition.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, there are some extremely helpful amendments in this group. Indeed, there has been a great deal of valuable debate both inside and outside the Chamber on the roles of competition and integration in the health service. I am grateful for much of what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said in his introductory speech.

The Government have been clear that both competition and integration can be important tools for commissioners to drive up the quality of services for patients. We have also been clear that it will be for commissioners to decide where and how these tools should be used—not Monitor. There will be no “one size fits all” or a model prescribed by government.

To help ensure that both competition and integration are effective, Part 3 of the Bill seeks to establish appropriate powers for Monitor. Where there is competition, Monitor will have powers to ensure that it operates effectively in the interests of patients and to safeguard against anti-competitive conduct that can work against those interests. The Future Forum concluded that Monitor, as a sector-specific regulator with knowledge and expertise in health services, would be best placed to achieve this. Let me remind the Committee that this is if there is competition. In some circumstances, I freely concede that commissioners may decide that the best way to achieve high-quality services for patients is not to have competition.

On Amendment 265C, I hope that noble Lords will agree that it is the right approach to require Monitor’s focus to be on considering the interests of patients. That will allow Monitor the scope to take account of a broad range of factors. This approach also provides continuity with the requirements of the existing system rules, the Principles and Rules for Co-operation and Competition, which we have committed to retaining and giving a firmer statutory underpinning through Monitor’s sectoral powers. Those powers are the setting and enforcement of licence conditions for providers and the overseeing of commissioning regulations set by the Secretary of State. Along with the concurrent powers to apply the Competition Act with the Office of Fair Trading, they will provide necessary safeguards to ensure that the interests of patients are protected.

To pick up on the sorts of circumstances cited by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that would include, for example, safeguarding against providers exchanging information to agree lower levels of service quality than they would otherwise supply if they were in competition; or a commissioner removing a well performing provider from the choices available to patients, or seeking to direct patient referrals to one provider and not another on non-clinical grounds.

However, it is not the case that every arrangement in the provision of healthcare that had the effect of restricting competition would necessarily be anti-competitive. I made that point in one of our earlier debates. I look particularly in the direction of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in saying that Monitor’s core duty means that patients’ interests will always come first. For example, in some cases limiting competition by concentrating specialist services in regional centres or in providing services through a clinical network may deliver overriding benefits to patients and would not, therefore, be anti-competitive. Similarly, where an integrated service raises competition concerns, and equally where services offering more choice and control raise concerns over integration, Monitor will always come back to its core duty—to ask itself the question, “What is it that benefits patients the most?”.

Life Sciences

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my noble friend has asked some extremely pertinent questions. In answer to her first one, data from GP practices as well as data from hospitals are available today. However, the clinical practice research datalink, which is the new service for researchers being established under the umbrella of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, will for the first time enable researchers to access very much larger banks of information on a population basis and to target their questions appropriately at the database. I do not see that there is any risk to the technological aspects of that system. The CPRD is using existing data structures in the NHS. It is not changing systems as Connecting for Health attempted to do and has done.

Will this make a difference to clinical trials in the UK? I believe that it is one ingredient of a package that will make the UK more attractive. On its own, perhaps it is not enough. When I recently visited Japan and spoke to pharmaceutical companies there they were extremely interested in this, but of course they take into account the wider picture. That has to include the fiscal environment, where we are introducing a patent box which will protect patents, at a very advantageous rate of tax, on intellectual property invented in this country. There are various incentives aside from that including the corporation tax rate, with ours being the lowest in the G7 in a few years’ time. Also, the establishment of the Health Research Authority is designed to streamline the ethical approvals for clinical trials. The establishment of the National Institute for Health Research also is designed to streamline the all-too-slow process that we have been used to over the past few years. We are determined that, across the piece, we must make this country and the NHS, in particular, the platform of choice for clinical trials in the world. I believe that this can be done, but of course it will not happen overnight.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, of course I am extremely biased but I absolutely commend the Government for bringing about this strategy. It was necessary to highlight our leadership in all these areas of stem cell therapy, regenerative medicine and other areas of drug development. Those who are concerned about the development of a clinical, practice-based research data bank need not be concerned. We have developed and used such a bank for many years and it works. The unfortunate thing about it is that it has been local. We now need a nationally based clinical-practice research data bank. Such a bank helps not only with clinical research but to improve patient care. Diabetes is an example where such a bank has been used, and where it has worked it has produced improvements in patient care. Last year, for example, it reduced peripheral limb loss by 40 per cent in diabetics. The current figures show that it will probably do the same for eye complications in diabetics. I commend the Government for this strategy.

I am biased because I am a member of the Medical Research Council. I am also a chairman of Cancer Research UK’s Dundee cancer research centre, which co-ordinates clinical research, basic research and clinical practice to deliver better research. For five years I was also chair of the Stem Cell Oversight Committee and developed the stem cell bank, which is the world's biggest stem cell bank. Other countries are envious and want access to our stem cell bank. We are the only country that has clinical-grade stem cells lodged in our bank. No other country has them. It is the clinical-grade stem cells that we will need to use for therapy, and next year we will be the first country to carry out clinical trials for age-related macular degeneration using embryonic stem cells. I do not worry about the patients ruling, either. I know that as scientists we do worry—but somehow we will overcome.

One strategy that the noble Earl did not mention was that of synthetic biology—I am also excited about that, because there was a risk that we would fall behind. The strategy states that an independent panel will be established to produce a road map for technological development in synthetic biology, which is a means of sequencing the effective things that occur in plants and other areas from which drugs can be developed. There are already examples of these in the United States, which have been used there to produce drugs. We will fall behind if we do not develop our research.

The idea of developing an independent road map for synthetic biology is commendable. I therefore ask the Minister, what is the timeline for developing that road map because, otherwise, others will leapfrog over us?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Lord mentioned that part of our initiative. As he rightly said, we have undertaken to develop a strategic road map that will set out the timeframe and actions required to establish a world-leading synthetic biology sector. That will be published in spring 2012. To oversee the delivery of the road map, we will establish a synthetic biology leadership council, co-chaired by my ministerial colleague David Willetts, the Minister for Science and Innovation, and Dr Clarke of Shell Global Solutions. I am told that the total timeline for this is 12 months. We therefore intend to move forward on this with some speed. I share the noble Lord’s enthusiasm for its potential.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 28th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am. The intention is that no clinical commissioning group will be authorised in the first instance unless it can demonstrate to the board that it can fulfil the legal duties that the Bill places on it. That is key to our thinking. Indeed, as time goes on, it will be under a continuous duty to show it is abiding by those duties. In the first instance, it is very important that clinical commissioning groups demonstrate they are fit for purpose in that sense.

I also appreciate the concern to ensure that the board and CCGs benefit from as wide a range of advice as possible. The Government have been clear that everyone with a role to play in securing the best possible services for local people should be able to do so. The definition used in the duties to obtain advice is that used to define the comprehensive health service. It would encompass the areas covered by Amendment 127C. Indeed, I do not think it would be possible to cast it in broader terms. These duties will apply to every function the board or a clinical commissioning group will exercise. Again, within those broad parameters it is important to retain some discretion for the board and CCGs to determine how best to exercise this duty.

The board and CCGs will certainly have to work closely and effectively with all the providers with which they contract as Amendments 127B and 197B suggest. I would say to my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones that that most certainly would include pharmacists. I also agree as to the expertise and the unique perspective that patients and their representative bodies can bring not just to the commissioning process but also to the way the board and clinical commissioning groups approach many of their functions. The same would apply to many other groups, including academic institutions, as the noble Lords, Lord Kakkar and Lord Walton, have highlighted.

The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, spoke powerfully in favour of academic health partnerships. Academic health science centres have been successful at developing these partnerships within their local areas but understandably have been less successful in spreading innovation across the NHS. As the noble Lord set out, the NHS chief executive’s innovation review is due to be published next month. That will set out how we can accelerate the adoption and diffusion of innovations across the NHS. It will include a mix of bottom-up, horizontal and top-down incentives and pressures that will drive adoption and diffusion of innovation and behaviour change. The role of academic health partnerships may or may not feature in this review. I hope the noble Lord will forgive me if I do not at this stage anticipate or pre-empt what the report will say by elaborating any further. However, I counsel noble Lords to play close attention to what the noble Lord said in his speech.

While these duties refer to obtaining advice from people with expertise in relation to the health service, that is not confined to clinical expertise. Indeed, in fulfilling these duties we envisage a role for clinical senates, as we have already discussed, in providing not just clinical advice but multidisciplinary advice from professionals in health, public health and social care backgrounds alongside patient and public representation and other groups as appropriate.

I am sure we all share a desire that these duties are effective. However, I am not convinced that imposing specific duties as to where the advice should come from, including through the membership of governing bodies, or how the advice should be acted on is the right way to proceed. If we become too prescriptive we risk overburdening CCGs with so many duties and obligations that they could never be sure whether they were doing enough and in reality we must trust them to build these relationships themselves and judge them on the outcomes they achieve.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, asked me about the secondary-care doctor role on CCGs and whether it had to be somebody from outside the area or retired or whether it could be a local person. We are looking carefully at that question. The secondary-care doctors on CCG governing bodies will not be able to have a conflict of interest in the decision-making process of the CCGs. That is where the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, was absolutely correct. We will use regulations to set out more detail about this and we will work with stakeholders, including pathfinders, to develop these proposals. The noble Baroness referred to the secondary-care doctor coming from either outside the CCG area or being retired. Those are two ways in which a conflict of interest could be avoided but they are only examples and do not represent an exhaustive list.

I want to finish by returning to a point raised earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. We too are aware of the very good work of National Voices, as well as a range of other organisations, on how patient and public involvement could be strengthened in the Bill. While I have explained why I think these specific amendments are not necessary, I am happy to go on listening. I feel that the Bill is already strong in this area but we are always open to new ideas and I look forward to further discussions on this general topic. It is for those reasons that, while sympathetic to the intention behind the amendments, I am unable to accept them and I hope noble Lords will agree not to press them.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, on behalf of all noble Lords who took part in the debate I thank the Minister for his comments. He excited us all by first saying that the only thing he would not be able to accept would be the death penalty. He finished by saying he could not accept most of what we were saying, partly because it was already in the Bill, which most of us did not think was the case. He demonstrates a commitment that patients’ voices and public involvement will be paramount and that all the commissioning boards and commissioners will be expected to demonstrate that they listen to the voices of patients and the public. We will watch and see how they are made accountable.

The Minister referred to innovation. Of course, the next group of amendments focuses on innovation, so we may come back to it and also the involvement of the academic health centres. We have had a good debate and maybe after reading Hansard some of us can decide whether we will come back to some of these issues. In the mean time, reluctantly, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 28th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, we return yet again to education and training. There is so much anxiety about the issue of education and training and workforce planning that I have had several representations, in particular one from the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Government Amendment 43 places a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that there is an effective system for the planning and delivery of education and training of the healthcare workforce. In order for this to be an effective system, a duty must be placed on the NHS Commissioning Board to promote education and training. This amendment seeks to do exactly that. As the board is nationally accountable for the outcomes achieved in the NHS and is also tasked with providing,

“the support and direction necessary to improve quality and patient outcomes and safeguard the core values of the NHS”,

it is only right that this duty to promote education and training is included as part of the core responsibilities of the NHS Commissioning Board alongside the existing duties in respect of research, variation in the provision of health services, and so on.

We must try to get education and training structures right so that the long-term sustainability of the health service is maintained with patient care continually improving. This must be reflected in the approach taken to commissioning, with the NHS Commissioning Board taking note of the needs identified by regulatory authorities and academic and professional organisations so that plans are in line with national strategies. In carrying out this important role the board should consult Health Education England as it has a vital role in providing sector-wide leadership and oversight of workforce planning, education and training in the NHS.

The second part of my amendment deals explicitly with the role of Health Education England, as it will oversee the current system for providing education and training via a levy set on providers, and aims to make sure that there is adequate capacity in training to meet the needs of the health service. Under the current proposals, healthcare providers are to work together in provider-led networks to manage the planning and commissioning of education and training. However, if there is no specification of the minimum number of placements—the minimum number of trainees that should be provided in each sector—providers, especially those such as alternative or private providers that might work to make profit, with shareholders to answer to and an increasing range of competitors, will have little impetus to provide adequate numbers in the long term. The future of the NHS depends on having sufficient numbers of trainees in all specialties, including general practice, and the training of the next generation of doctors and other healthcare professionals will be put at risk if these plans are not strengthened. Furthermore, with the likely greater specialisation of some providers, and the non-requirement for all providers to provide educational opportunities, there is a risk that the overall quality of postgraduate generalist medical education will be affected due to reduced opportunities to widen the range of disease types and treatments that the students will see.

The policy of any qualified provider, alongside the pressures of the Nicholson challenge, should not be allowed to affect the provision of education and training by providers, whether they are new or old. Health Education England should therefore be tasked with taking steps to set a minimum number of trainee placements for each sector within the health service and to hold providers to account where necessary.

The amendment demonstrates the anxiety felt by a whole range of people in different parts of training and education. I know that the chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the medical school deans and the postgraduate deans have recently sent a letter to the Secretary of State expressing their concerns. I hope that it will be possible to get this right with a solution that is acceptable to all sides, including the Government, so that we have in the Bill something which does not affect government policy but demonstrates that the Government are serious about making sure that the education and training of the healthcare workforce will be a priority.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, it may assist the Committee if I indicate at this early point in the debate that the Government are extremely sympathetic to this group of amendments. As noble Lords will know, I have already committed to publishing, prior to Report, a much more detailed set of proposals for health education and training in the light of the forthcoming recommendations of the NHS Future Forum, and I hope that this will prove helpful. However, I can now go further.

These amendments focus on how commissioners in the new system will foster high-quality education and training in the health sector and on the potential role of regulators and Health Education England in supporting the education and training system. The Government have listened carefully and we are persuaded by the intent behind these proposals. I therefore now commit to taking away the amendments, considering them in a constructive spirit and bringing forward our own proposals on Report aimed at addressing the issues raised by the amendments. I hope that the Committee will welcome this undertaking. I am of course willing to meet noble Lords between now and Report to discuss the underlying issues further.

[Lord Patel]

I am grateful to the Minister for those comments and am greatly encouraged.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, no, because the Bill does not cover the duties of the regulatory authorities themselves, the professional regulators that is to say. My undertaking should be read as relating to the Bill itself and the bodies and structures it sets up.

[Lord Patel]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Health: Flu Vaccine Research

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is extremely well informed. I have not seen the report that she mentioned. The only licensed vaccines currently supplied to the UK are inactivated trivalent influenza vaccines, but it is expected that within the next few years others will become available, including a live attenuated trivalent intranasal vaccine next year. In the future, an adjuvanted vaccine and a quadrivalent vaccine may also become available. The JCVI—the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation—has looked at some of these new vaccines and believes that they present exciting prospects for greater efficacy.

[Lord Patel]

Does the Minister agree that it is currently the task of the Health Protection Agency to track these infections globally and to do research to make sure that we are prepared if there is a pandemic of a different flu virus? Does he therefore agree that any proposals that lead to the Health Protection Agency—which is recognised worldwide for research and expertise —not being allowed to carry out research as it currently does are flawed?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we are very clear that the Health Protection Agency performs a major public service and we have no intention of disrupting the work that it does, least of all by interfering with its research. As the noble Lord knows, the proposals are to shift the Health Protection Agency into the new, larger government agency, Public Health England. The World Health Organisation is actually the body that monitors the strains of flu worldwide and issues twice-yearly warnings to countries about the strains that are emerging so that countries can prepare for their forthcoming winter flu season.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 14th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I will talk in a moment about specialised commissioning and I hope the answer to the noble Lord’s question will emerge. Amendment 84, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, would require the board to commission highly specialised services, in collaboration with the sub-national clinical senates that are accountable to it.

I will not rehash my arguments around Amendments 51 and 224A, but many of the same points will apply to this amendment. Specialised services are challenging to commission; they involve complex care pathways, small numbers of providers and very small numbers of patients with rare conditions. The new NHS Commissioning Board authority will be considering options as to how it does this, including the best form for its substructures. There will be the freedom to adapt these over time and, to ensure that progress is not lost, the board will be required under existing provisions to maintain the necessary focus of clinical expertise in these highly specialised areas.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked how we ensure that clinical senates are not ignored; this is precisely why we do not want to prescribe their role in the Bill. We want senates to be enabling bodies, which is why we are inviting views on the type of advice they could provide to identify the functions of the board and CCGs where they would add value.

The noble Lord, Lord Patel, indicated that he thought the clinicians on the senate would have to come from outside the clinical commissioning group area. That is not the case; he is not correct in that assumption. There may be slight confusion with the rules we set for secondary care doctors on CCG governing bodies, who must avoid conflicts of interest, hence the need for area restrictions in that context. Experts on clinical senates can come from, in theory, all or any areas of the country. The difference between the senates and regional specialist commissioning is that the latter focuses on specialised services and nothing else. The senates could, in theory, work across all services; the two are not designed to do the same thing. The senates will be quite high level. It is expected they will be about only 15 in number, and while they may be established in a certain form they can evolve over the years to conform to the requirements that are placed upon them.

My noble friend Lady Jolly pressed me on the role of the board with regard to specialised commissioning, and I have already indicated in outline part of that role. The key point is that the board will maintain the necessary focus of clinical expertise and it will be under specific duties to obtain professional advice in the exercise of its functions. Under the regulations, the types of service the board will be required to commission will be kept under regular review. Work is going on at the moment to define what those services should be in the first instance, and I fully expect them to conform broadly to the specialised services national definition set. As my noble friend knows, the list of those services has historically changed over time and I expect the same will apply in the future.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, asked about the long promised organigram. In fact, our fact sheet on the overall health and care system does have an organigram in it. It includes the NHS Commissioning Board and describes how senates and networks will be hosted by the board. I refer the noble Baroness to that sheet. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, asked how senates will be different to academic health science centres in their focus. In short, AHSCs are partnerships of local academic and health bodies to support innovation and excellence in that area. However, they will not be impartial; they are by definition a vested interest. Therefore, they would not be the right bodies to offer the broader perspective on how services should best be configured across a region.

I hope that noble Lords will be at least somewhat enlightened by the details I have been able to give about clinical networks and senates. As I say, this is work in progress. I make no apology for that. This was very much a recommendation that emerged from the Future Forum report. We have got on with the work needed to flesh out what these bodies should be, but we have a broad and, I hope, helpful idea of their role across the wider NHS system. I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his extensive reply. When I moved this amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, I did not think there would be such enthusiasm to join in. I was surprised by the enthusiasm generated by his amendment, and I thank noble Lords who joined in. The most reverend Primate said this amendment was not necessary. I hope that he was not referring to the amendments that I had tabled, or I would say to him that my amendments were “zuri sana”—for those of you who do not understand, that means they were very good. He understands that.

The noble Earl has, to a degree, clarified the Government’s thinking on what the role of these senates will be. As he said, it is work in progress. Of course, we will need to wait and see what the details are. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Patel]

Before the Minister sits down, will he please confirm that the primary care doctors and the primary care team will also be obliged to report patient safety incidents?

[Earl Howe]

My understanding is that that is the intention. The clinical commissioning group will wish to monitor the quality of service provided by its member practices and the outcomes that those practices achieve. As part of that monitoring we fully expect that safety will be a core component.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 7th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

Of course there is, and I am grateful to the noble Lord. We are anxious to ensure, however, that any measures that we put in place in the outcomes framework are robust in terms of their verifiability. As I have said, I completely agree with the need for good data that have to underpin any system of accountability. I strongly feel that the Bill takes a significant step in the right direction. The NHS Information Centre will be the powerhouse for improving data in the NHS. It will look at how we can improve data for all age groups, not just the over-75s. I take on board what the noble Lord said. If I can add to what I have said, I should be happy to do so in writing.

I shall cover briefly the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, about NICE. NICE is a body for which we have the highest regard. In the Bill, we are widening its duties and placing it on a much firmer statutory footing. I hope that that in itself will indicate to the noble Lord that, far from downplaying the role of NICE, we want to do the opposite. We are giving it responsibility for defining excellence in social care and for producing a library of quality standards, which it has already started to do. In connection with technology appraisals, we see it continuing to have a very important role. What the noble Lord may have heard on the grapevine, if I can put it that way, related to our plans for value-based pricing of medicines. If we succeed in defining a good system—a good framework—for value-based pricing, the role of NICE will inevitably shift somewhat, because it will be asked a slightly different question from that which it is asked at the moment, but it will retain an absolutely central role, particularly in the pharmacoeconomic evaluation of new medicines.

The noble Lord asked me about the concern that clinical commissioning groups would, as it were, be able to take their own decisions and perhaps disregard NICE guidance. We have made absolutely clear that the funding direction associated with NICE-approved medicines will continue, not only up to the end of 2013, which is when the current pharmaceutical price regulation scheme comes to an end, but thereafter in the new world of value-based pricing.

I agree with the spirit of all the amendments, but I hope that noble Lords will accept from me that they are either not needed or would have an unintended and retrograde effect, which I have tried to outline. I hope that, with that, noble Lords will feel able not to press the amendments.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his detailed comments and all noble Lords who took part, although some of them did not quite understand the meaning of my amendments. None the less, it was never my intention to have a narrow definition of “clinical”, and I accept what the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said: that it might give the impression that this is narrowly defined to medical standards. It is not; it takes into account both the well-being of the patient and, beyond that, rehabilitation and even social care, if we can define the standard.

My intention was never to press the amendments, but to try to highlight the issue that standards that are written are important if they are written with a view to focusing on patient outcomes. The phrase “clinical standards” tends to do that, and other standards have to incorporate that. If there was one benefit of this debate, it was that the noble Earl had to define the quality standards that NICE would be expected to write, which incorporates the patient journey of care from access to rehabilitation. That is exactly what I was hoping to achieve. By the way, I am familiar with NICE, having been involved at its inception and having written the paper that established it. Standards, whether they are quality standards of access or others, must focus on what gives a better outcome to the patient. On that basis, I am pleased to withdraw the amendment.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The trouble with that is that we are straying into the mechanics and the detail of the education and training system, and we are still consulting on how it will work. That is the difficulty I have in answering some of the detailed questions that are being put to me. I can answer many of them, but once we move into particular questions on how the system for education and training will all fit together, it would be imprudent of me to put anything on to the record at this stage.

[Lord Patel]

I go back to the question that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, asked. In the event that the example he gave should happen, ipso facto, it would mean that Health Education England had failed.

[Earl Howe]

It might or it might not. All I can say is that the Department of Health will have designed and co-ordinated the new system and will develop the outcomes framework. Health Education England will be providing oversight and national leadership for education and training. The department and Health Education England, together, would no doubt have a role in sorting out the kind of situation that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has adumbrated. However, it is a little difficult to discuss this in hypothetical terms. I have tried to set out, broadly, how the system should operate—

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

As I read it, it is the noble Lord’s amendment and it is for him to speak to it, but it refers to the education and training of “the health care workforce”. That will include a lot of people, but not those who are not healthcare workers.

[Lord Patel]

That depends on the interpretation of the word “care”.

Health: Breast Cancer

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 3rd October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, there are broadly three ways in which we can attain that target. The main way is through early diagnosis—in particular, by making sure that women are aware of the signs and symptoms that could indicate breast cancer—but also by improving access to screening and to radiotherapy, which has already been covered in the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. To support the NHS to achieve earlier diagnosis of cancer, the strategy has been backed by over £450 million over the next four years. That is part of over £750 million additional funding for cancer over the spending review period.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, we know that one of the reasons for the poor outcomes on cancers is the late referrals of patients who suffer from cancers. We are now likely to have performance management of primary care doctors being based on their referral patterns. Can the Minister confirm that there will be no financial incentive for reducing referrals of suspected cancer patients for treatment?

[Earl Howe]

Yes, I can, my Lords. It is very important that doctors should feel absolutely free to refer patients. I remind the noble Lord that it is a right for patients, under the NHS constitution, to expect to be referred within the laid-down waiting time maximum periods, so we are very clear that there should be nothing to interfere with doctors’ clinical judgment in this area.

NHS: Cost-effectiveness

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 12th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I commend to the noble Baroness the impact assessment that we published on the Bill. It shows clearly that, over the next 10 years, the savings that we will bring about will dwarf the cost of making the changes that we propose.

[Lord Patel]

Does the Minister agree that improving the quality of healthcare will lead to higher costs?

[Earl Howe]

No, I do not. There are plenty of examples of quality costing less because the system gets it right first time. We see this time and again, for example in the Quit programme. The simplest example is that if we can treat patients correctly in hospital and keep them in for the shortest amount of time, we save a great deal of money.

NHS: Hospitals

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Thursday 8th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that question. I am sorry to say that I do not have those figures in front of me, but she is absolutely right to make the point that the independent sector treatment centres introduced by the previous Government were a perfectly proper move to increase choice for patients, and in many cases we have seen the quality of care in those hospitals encourage the NHS to raise its own game. Competition on that basis is highly beneficial.

[Lord Patel]

Will the Minister say what assessment has been made of the causes of low productivity in the NHS?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is clear that one of the causes was that the previous Government—for all the right reasons, I have to say—injected very large sums of additional money into the health service, but alongside that there was no commensurate increase in activity. A lot of the additional money went into settling pay claims. That is not to decry the many benefits that arose from the additional money, but the net effect was a decline in productivity.

NHS: Medical Records

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I pay tribute to the work that the noble Lord did when he was a Minister. Yes, the Government are committed to a summary care record, which, for the benefit of noble Lords, is a record that includes a defined set of key patient data, other than for patients who choose to opt out—that is an important rider. Clinicians can then access essential medical information that they need to support safe treatment and to reduce the risk of inadvertent harm, especially during emergency care. To answer the second question that the noble Lord asked, over six million patients now have a summary care record, which is a considerable increase over a few months ago.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, would the Minister agree that to improve the quality of healthcare we would need comparable indicators of health outcomes? In the absence of nationally collected computerised data, how would we achieve this?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. We have to measure performance in order to improve upon it. That is why we are focused on producing an information strategy, which we hope to publish later this year. A lot of work has already gone on and the NHS Future Forum, as he may know, is looking at this area. He is absolutely right that this will be central to the performance management of the NHS.

NHS: University Health Centres

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 4th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord for introducing this vexed topic into a health Question. It would be improper for me to comment on the deliberations of the Scottish Parliament.

[Lord Patel]

Can the Minister say what assessment has been made of the impact of the QOF on the outcomes for patients, whether university patients or otherwise?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, there is no doubt that the QOF had many beneficial effects when it first began, and we recognise those. However, there is a general feeling that it needs to evolve and refocus itself more on those things for which it was originally intended, which were to promote quality and better outcomes in patient care.

Health: Hepatitis C

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 20th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is absolutely right that early diagnosis is always a good thing for this condition as it is for many others. We know who the risk groups are, and therefore the important thing is to target screening and testing at those groups. Predominantly, the at-risk groups are injecting drug users or former injecting drug users; they account for well over 80 per cent of cases of hepatitis C. Those groups are the focus of our efforts in primary and community care, and especially in prisons.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that some ethical issues might arise in the mass anonymous screening of blood samples if a treatment was available for the disease that was being screened?

[Earl Howe]

In the case of hepatitis C, treatments recommended by NICE are of course available that, if taken early enough, can dramatically affect the course of the disease. I think we are in danger of straying into legislative territory that is perhaps the occasion for a wider debate as to how, if at all, we might expand the scope of the Human Tissue Act so as to reach those cases that I think the noble Lord is referring to.

Health: Hospital-acquired Infection

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness knows, we expect trusts and primary care organisations to utilise funds from within their global budgets to meet the requirements that I have just outlined, such as those in the NHS operating framework. These requirements are mandatory, and it appears that over the past few years, trusts and primary care organisations have really got to grips with this problem.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, the Government are to be commended on insisting that all hospitals publish their infection rates for Clostridium difficile and MRSA on a weekly basis, which we can monitor on the website. It is interesting to note that one or two hospitals stand out by consistently having higher numbers while the rest make dramatic reductions. What is important, however, is that there has been no reduction in central venous line or other central line infections. I hope that the Government have a strategy similar to the one on MRSA and C. difficile to insist that hospitals reduce their rates of central line infections.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point. We have consciously limited the extent to which it is a requirement to publish data to the most prevalent infections that need to be addressed. That is not to say that other types of infection are less important; they are extremely important. However, we would expect a ward-to-board policy to operate within each trust so that the boards of trusts bear down on these infections as hard as on others.

NHS: Reform

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 6th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I accept that a number of aspects of the Government’s proposals have caused concern in many quarters, and that is why we have chosen to pause in order to listen and reflect on those concerns. As I have said, we will be bringing forward proposals shortly to improve the Bill. I hope that those proposals will meet with widespread acceptance. I think that it is fair to say that it is not the main principles which the Government have laid out that have been the subject of controversy but rather the detail and the implementation, which we are looking at most closely.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, does the noble Earl agree that if we are going to make the proposed savings in the health service of £20 billion, some form of reconfiguration of how health services are delivered is inevitable? If that is so, which would he prefer: a market-driven reconfiguration, or a planned one that will contain costs in the future?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the way we have set out the Health and Social Care Bill means that, wherever possible, decisions on service reconfiguration will be taken at the local level. That will mean that all stakeholders locally, not only the NHS but local authorities, social services and patient groups, will buy in to and contribute to whatever decisions are taken. So my answer to the noble Lord is this: it should be a considered process of decision-making taken locally.

NHS Reform

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend and can give him those assurances. He is right: we have somehow got ourselves into the position of having a National Health Service that is, in essence, managerially and administratively led instead of being clinically led. That has happened by a process of accretion and slow and steady development. We need to get back to one of the principles that the incoming Labour Government articulated in 1997 when they introduced primary care groups. That was an attempt by them to do exactly what we are trying to do: to have clinically led commissioning in the health service. Unfortunately, to my mind, primary care groups morphed into primary care trusts and thereby became administrative units which became more and more divorced from clinical decision-making.

I can reassure my noble friend that we do not want to dilute the principle of clinically led commissioning. We believe that it is right and that we can build on the experience of the past; not just primary care groups, but also the good parts of fundholding, which had some good elements, and practice-based commissioning groups, which the previous Government introduced. This is an important opportunity, as I said earlier, to capitalise on the NHS as it now is and to shed some of the unhelpful elements that get in the way of driving quality and patient care.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, the Statement suggests that the Government are satisfied with the performance of the health service, both fiscally and in the quality of care it provides. It is therefore surprising that the Statement also says that we need to improve productivity and quality. How does an economic regulator promote competition based on quality?

[Earl Howe]

The economic regulator will do two things. It will fix prices for the purposes of the tariff and it will preside over the marketplace—such as it exists—in healthcare so that anti-competitive conduct will be prohibited. It will bear down upon conflicts of interest and anti-competitive practices of all kinds and, in conjunction with the NHS commissioning board, it will ensure that the pricing system in the NHS incentivises quality. There are, as the noble Lord knows, a number of levers that we can use to do that through the tariff.

NHS: Reorganisation

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Thursday 24th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we are beginning to reorganise the system. Under current rules, we are enabled to do so. I understand my noble friend’s particular point about the claw-back arrangements but there is perhaps a countervailing argument over what is fair and unfair in redundancy arrangements. In that sense, one cannot push the issue too far. Having said that, we are on track with the retirement scheme. We are seeing a deliberate and carefully managed process of reducing staff numbers at primary care trust level, leading up to the clustering of primary care trusts, which I am sure my noble friend knows about.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, can the Minister say—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Patel]

Can the Minister say whether the Government have made any assessment of the transaction costs of the reform?

[Earl Howe]

I can tell the noble Lord, as I did before this Question began, that the transaction costs are not in my brief. However, we are in a different world now from the one we were in 10 or 15 years ago. We have a payment-by-results system which is well established. It is important to understand that the modernisation programme is not about competitive tendering, because it will streamline the whole process whereby providers to the health service will be enabled to offer their services to patients. It is not dependent on competitive tendering and the transaction costs should reflect that beneficially.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I think I have lost my thread, but I have said what I wanted to say.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, I begin by expressing my thanks to all noble Lords for the opportunity to debate these amendments. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, pointed out at the beginning of her remarks, following the Government’s concession in withdrawing Schedule 7 in its entirety, these amendments would have the effect of putting the Human Tissue Authority and Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority out of scope of the Bill.

Our starting point in approaching these issues is a clear objective to streamline the process of regulation and, consequently, reduce costs and the administrative burden on establishments while continuing to offer the necessary protection for the public. The Bill presents us with an opportunity to achieve that. Our aim is to streamline healthcare and medical research regulation and so reduce bureaucracy. That approach is supported by leading assisted reproduction clinicians and their professional bodies and by the Academy of Medical Sciences.

The scope for streamlining is clear. We estimate that around 80 per cent of the centres currently licensed by the HFEA are also either regulated by the Care Quality Commission or are in premises that the commission regulates. Some 60 per cent of the centres licensed by the HTA are similarly covered by the CQC. It therefore seems unsustainable to continue to have these regulatory systems running in parallel. The question posed by my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree as to whether the CQC wants to take on this work can best be answered by reference to the regulatory activity that it already performs. In any event, as regards the pace at which we take this, we intend to develop arrangements for the transfer of functions in consultation with the CQC over the next few years, and no transfer of functions will take place until that process is complete. However, the Government recognise that there are number of noble Lords with concerns about the proposal to transfer the functions of these two bodies, and not for a minute would I wish to minimise the nature of those concerns.

Let me be clear—both the HFEA and the HTA are models of regulatory authority that were right for the times in which they were created and which have done an admirable job in meeting the demands placed on them. However, as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern pointed out, times change, and most pertinently so has the way in which we regulate the delivery of healthcare. With the establishment of the CQC along with the possibility—and I put it no stronger than that at the moment—of the creation of a new regulatory body for medical research, alternative structures are becoming available to ensure a more joined-up system. This provides, as I have said, the opportunity to streamline the process of regulation and reduce costs.

The powers in Clause 5 would allow us to achieve that without disturbing the underlying legislation, which captures the ethical safeguards that Parliament has so carefully set in place. Any future proposals to abolish these two bodies will be provided for in future primary legislation. I am happy to reiterate my assurance that there is no intention to revisit the provisions in either the Human Tissue Act or the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act that provide the important ethical safeguards necessary to maintain public confidence in these sensitive areas. I would say to my noble friend Lord Willis and to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that means that future arrangements to regulate tissue and embryos must adhere strictly to the provisions of the two relevant Acts.

Noble Lords have raised particular concerns about the need to preserve the expertise these bodies have built up in the ethically sensitive subjects they deal with and the need to preserve the confidence of both professionals and the public in the way that these regulatory functions are carried out. The Government recognise the genuine nature of these concerns and we are determined that changes will not be at the expense of regulatory rigour or expertise.

I say to my noble friend Lord Willis that expertise will not be lost. It is envisaged that expertise will follow functions; for instance, through staff transfers and expert reference groups. Noble Lords have questioned the capacity of the CQC to assume these responsibilities. It will be given the capacity and the resources to carry out any widened functions. The CQC already has a proven track record of taking on the oversight of a specialist area. It took on the Mental Health Act Commission functions and I believe has successfully maintained oversight and focus on that area.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, expressed concern that our whole approach in this area seemed unnecessarily complex. The powers that we are debating today will enable us to transfer some of the functions of the HFEA and HTA to other bodies but they do not enable us to do everything that we have set out in the ALB review. In order to abolish the HFEA and HTA or to transfer their research-related functions to any new research agency we will require powers under future primary legislation.

It may help if I try to provide a rough outline as to how and when we expect things to happen. We intend publically to consult on proposals to transfer all of the HFEA and HTA functions to other bodies in the late summer of 2011. Then during 2012-13 we would prepare draft orders for formal consultation under the provisions of this Bill dealing with the transfer of functions other than research functions. If appropriate we would then be able to lay the orders before Parliament. The process would enable noble Lords and other interested parties to see, comment on and debate the proposals as they progress. In order to avoid the piecemeal transfer of functions we would intend to ensure that the timetables for necessary future primary legislation and the commencement date of orders made under this Bill are aligned so that they come into force at the same time.

Without the inclusion of these bodies in Schedule 5 to the Public Bodies Bill we would have to provide for the transfer of their functions entirely within future primary legislation and this would significantly increase the risk that the underlying ethical provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act and the Human Tissue Act could be reopened for debate and would afford less time for consideration and comment than the progressive approach which I have just outlined. I seek to impress upon noble Lords that that is a very powerful reason for wishing to grant the Government the powers we are seeking as regards these two bodies.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, indicated that, in his view, the report by the Academy of Medical Sciences does not give sufficient backing to the idea that embryo research should be covered by the new research regulator. I would simply point him, if I may, towards paragraph 9.5.1 of the report which explicitly refers to the new body, if it is set up, having responsibility,

“for ‘specialist’ approvals and licences within the HRA around data, tissue and embryos, gene therapy and exposure to radiation”.

I think, as I read that, it was very much in the minds of the authors of the report that the research functions of the HFEA should be brought within the scope of a health research regulatory agency.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, expressed her worries about the information functions of the HFEA and the absence of a clear plan by the Government for what should happen to those functions. She is right, we have not fully made up our minds about where those functions should best sit, but that is one of the main reasons why we wish to consult on this. We need to ask the public and interested parties where these functions should sit, and there will be an impact assessment with the consultation.

My noble friend Lord Willis asked about the possibility of setting up a single research agency without primary legislation. He is technically right; we could do that. I should emphasise that we have not decided whether to accept the AMS recommendation to establish a single research agency—we think that there are merits in the proposal and we will be making an announcement shortly—but if we were to propose setting up such an agency we could do so initially by creating a special health authority. However, we could not legally transfer the research-related functions of either the HTA or the HFEA to that body. We could not make a transfer of functions to a special health authority without amending the 2006 Act.

The case was simply put by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. Essentially, we are asking the Committee to agree to grant the Government permission to consult on these matters. I hope that the noble Baroness will not seek to press her amendment today but instead will consider that a good purpose will be served by reflecting on the comments that I have made in response. In view of our concessions—

Health: Cancer

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proposals they have for improving outcomes for cancer patients.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, we published Improving Outcomes: A Strategy for Cancer on 12 January, which sets out a range of actions to improve outcomes for cancer patients. Earlier diagnosis is crucial to improving outcomes, and we have set out plans to deliver this through improving GP access to diagnostic tests, supporting symptom awareness initiatives, and extending cancer screening programmes. We are also improving access to treatment and the quality of support for survivors.

[Lord Patel]

I thank the Minister for his Answer, which is very helpful because it prompts two questions. First, when does he think the procedures which he has put in place will succeed and cancer outcomes will improve, and in the mean time what is likely to happen to cancer outcomes? Secondly, could he also say what the state of radiotherapy treatment in England is?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the strategy we have laid out is an ambitious one. It aims to save an additional 5,000 lives every year by 2014-15. That programme is supported by over £750 million of additional money over the next four years. It sets out actions to prevent cancer incidence and to improve the quality and efficiency of cancer services and of patients’ experiences of care. We are giving ourselves a little time, but we are under no illusions, and this is an agenda to be pursued very energetically. We are putting considerable additional money—from memory, it is £150 million—into radiotherapy services, but we also feel that there is an important issue around the use of existing radiotherapy equipment, which is often not utilised as effectively as it could be.

Health: Influenza Vaccination

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Thursday 20th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, almost all vaccines, except the seasonal flu vaccines, are procured centrally because central procurement provides a cost-effective arrangement that can take account of the variation in supply and demand. It also gives us the ability to track where the batches of vaccine have gone. We are therefore looking at taking into the department the procurement of the seasonal flu vaccine.

[Lord Patel]

Last time we discussed this subject, I asked the Minister why the advice given by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States was so different from the advice from our committee on vaccination. My question this time is: is the Minister sure that the advice that he gets from our committee takes into account evidence that other countries gather and on which they base their advice? The CDC’s advice in the United States is to vaccinate everybody over the age of six months.

[Earl Howe]

Yes, I am satisfied. The expert advice provided by the JCVI takes into consideration first and foremost the epidemiology of the disease in the UK, which may well differ from that in other countries. The noble Lord may be interested to know that, while the UK is experiencing H1N1 as the most prevalent flu strain, the prevalent flu strains in the United States are H3N2 and influenza B, so a very different situation applies in that country.

Health: Influenza

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am satisfied with the validity of the statistics. The problem is, of course, that there is always a lag. The statistics that I read out earlier in my main Answer were supplied to us by the Health Protection Agency and regard verified laboratory tested results. We have another method of assessing the number of deaths that is retrospective. After the end of the flu season we can assess whether the number of deaths has been higher than expected. Of course, we are endeavouring to improve our statistical base all the time and no doubt lessons will be learnt from this season, as they are from every season.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, what is the basis for the differing advice in the United Kingdom about the group of people who should be vaccinated compared with that given in the United States from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which advise that everyone over the age of six months should be vaccinated?

[Earl Howe]

That is precisely why we have an independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation: to advise Ministers on these matters. Ministers are bound to take that advice. Indeed, the previous Government determined that they were legally obliged to take the committee’s advice, which is what we have done.

NHS: Targets

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, many of the data that will underpin the monitoring of the outcomes framework are already collected as a matter of routine but are just not used. In the outcomes framework, we shall reduce the number of outcomes to many fewer than have been in play under the previous Government’s process-based targets. We do not see our proposals as imposing unnecessary or impossible extra burdens on the NHS.

[Lord Patel]

I need to cultivate a louder voice, obviously. Can the Minister give an example of where competition in healthcare delivery has improved outcomes?

[Earl Howe]

I am sorry that the noble Lord is a sceptic on these matters. In the field of mental health care, for example, where there is a long-standing position of private sector contestability, we have seen that standards have been driven up. There is no doubt that the foundation trust model has also paved the way for higher quality in healthcare.

Health: Passive Smoking

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

In answer to my noble friend’s first question, yes, the report has been forwarded to the WHO.

On illicit trade, HMRC leads on tackling the availability of illicit tobacco and has carried out—as I am sure my noble friend knows—a great deal of activity to tackle that market through its overseas network of fiscal crime liaison officers, as well as through activity at the border and inland detection work. HMRC also works closely with local authority trading standards officers. Those efforts have led to a decline in the market share of illicit cigarettes from 21 per cent in 2000 to 11 per cent, according to the latest available figures. However, he is right that hand-rolling tobacco in particular remains a problem.

[Lord Patel]

Does the Minister agree that the current packaging of cigarettes is used as a form of marketing by the tobacco industry?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, that is the very question that we want to look at. Of course, tobacco companies regard their brands as a form of marketing and they attach value to the intellectual property that they consider to be in those brands. However, the issue from a public health perspective is whether the design of a pack actually entices non-smokers to take up smoking or indeed deters smokers from giving up. That is the question that we will examine.

Health Protection Agency

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Thursday 7th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness will know with her long experience, health and safety at work is a cornerstone of good industrial policy. Certainly, I am not aware of any plans of my department to affect the strength and force of current health and safety rules.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, which of the tasks currently carried out by the HPA will not be carried out in the future?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I have to defer an answer to that because we will shortly publish a White Paper about our plans for the public health service. Following that the public and interested professionals will be invited to feed in their views on exactly how that service should be configured.

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we are not targeting the targets with this inquiry. They are not the main point at issue. The noble Lord is right that the main point at issue is the failure of care, but that is also, as we hope this inquiry will show, a systemic failure. That is the point of the inquiry. I do not doubt anything that he said about the commitment of previous Ministers to putting care above any rigid adherence to targets; I fully accept the good faith of Ministers in the previous Administration in that regard. However, the noble Lord will know that what Ministers say is very often not interpreted in the same way on the ground in the NHS. When people in the NHS hear things coming out of Whitehall, they are inclined to adhere rigidly to what they are told to do. That is part of the problem, but it is not the problem that I want to emphasise in this context. We need to understand how the wider performance management and regulatory system failed to spot the problems earlier and deal with them and why so few professionals felt that they could challenge what they saw. Understanding the lessons from that and the culture in which the events at Mid Staffs were allowed to happen will be key to informing and shaping our plans for the future.

[Lord Patel]

I declare an interest as chairman of the National Patient Safety Agency. I concur with what the Minister just said: the regulatory authorities that scrutinise the performance of trusts failed Mid Staffordshire. I was criticised for publishing reports of all trusts linked to two parameters of quality of patient safety: trusts’ reporting of incidents and mortality ratios. On both those criteria, Mid Staffordshire would have failed, as other trusts fail now. We need an inquiry that identifies parameters of quality and safety that could be embedded across the whole of the NHS so that we can identify failing hospitals early on and remedy them. I support the inquiry.

[Earl Howe]

I pay tribute to the noble Lord for his work, in particular for his work with the National Patient Safety Agency. As he will know, hospital standardised mortality ratios are something of a vexed topic. Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director, has established a working group that will review how those ratios are derived and recommend what method should be used consistently for the NHS in future. The aim is to provide simple, practical guidance on how the ratios should be interpreted and used with other sources of information. Once the technical basis for this work has been developed, it is planned that patients and patient groups will be invited to become closely involved.