Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Dennis Skinner

Friday 16th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I think that is broadly the point, but it also goes back to what the hon. Member for Totnes said about the impact on participation in clinical research trials. It seems entirely possible to me that a doctor might choose to prescribe an innovative treatment, or a patient decide to take an innovative treatment, rather than enter a clinical trial. If a patient is faced with the choice of guaranteed access to a treatment or participation in a trial in which there is a 50-50 chance that they will not be part of the group receiving the innovative treatment, why would they choose to be part of the trial? I would be grateful for the Minister’s comments on that. Does he not accept that the arrangements for clinical trials, including as they do monitoring and ongoing data collection, provide a much better mechanism for evaluating new treatments and advancing medical progress than a situation that could become more pervasive as a result of the Bill?

If the concerns I have set out so far are not enough, let me now turn to my main concern about the Bill, which, if passed, could undermine a patient’s ability to hold doctors to account when things go wrong.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

It is on this very subject that I am interested. I have had treatment for cancer and a heart bypass and countless other things, which is why I am still here. I have had to give permission to countless doctors for them to take action. What I can see here is that the doctor’s permission, which lists a lot of things they might or might not do, would also have to include a list of innovative treatments before I signed the document. It says on the document, say, that there is a 50% chance of having a stroke or a 5% chance that you might die. I remember saying to one of the doctors in Brompton hospital, after I had signed one for the fourth time, that I was down to even money. I would not even be even money if a list of innovative treatments was added to the ones I am already required to attend to. I cannot see, for the life of me, how the doctors could avoid having to put that on the document before a patient signed it. Believe me, it would frighten people to death.

[Heidi Alexander]

I am keen to find a way for doctors to innovate, but to do so using safe and effective treatments.

I was saying that the problem with the Bill is that it undermines a patient’s ability to hold doctors to account when things go wrong. The hon. Member for Daventry claimed that this is not Lord Saatchi’s Bill, but the wording of clause 3 is very similar to clause 1 of the previous Bill. Clause 3(2)(a) in today’s Bill requires a doctor to

“obtain the views of one or more...doctors”—

which, in practice, could mean just one doctor—

“with a view to ascertaining whether the treatment would have the support of a reasonable body of medical opinion.”

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that that relies on someone’s interpretation of a “reasonable body”, as opposed to seeking a view from a responsible body directly? Does the Bill not boil down to one doctor who wishes to deviate from accepted medical treatments asking another doctor whether he or she thinks there is a reasonable body of medical opinion that would support such a treatment? As long as that second doctor perceives such an opinion to exist about support for the proposed treatment, this provides cover for the patient’s doctor to proceed. I cannot say that I am particularly convinced by that.