Ageing: Science, Technology and Healthy Living (Science and Technology Committee Report) Debate

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Department: Department of Health and Social Care

Ageing: Science, Technology and Healthy Living (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Crisp Excerpts
Wednesday 20th October 2021

(2 years, 5 months ago)

Grand Committee
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Lord Crisp Portrait Lord Crisp (CB)
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My Lords, I am not a member of the committee so it gives me great pleasure to say that I thought this was a really excellent report. The science was fascinating and it was very readable as well. I almost thought I understood most of it, which was gratifying. It deserves a wider audience for bringing it all together in the way that it does. It is also a privilege to follow on behind a distinguished doctor and to be followed by a distinguished nurse; I suppose that is the right place for somebody whose background is in health management.

I want to pick up three points. Two of them are about the Government’s response and the other is about something specific within the committee’s report. As a health manager, perhaps the right place for me to start off is with that nexus of issues that noble Lords have talked so much about: the multimorbidity, the unplanned cocktail of drugs that people are taking and the lack of co-ordination. Very interestingly, there was also the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, picked up about older people not being included in drug trials. Indeed, as the report said, there was no real research being done on ageing in general, as opposed to the more specific points as a whole.

This area of co-ordination and oversight of what is happening with old people’s medication and their health is vital. I am not sure the committee’s recommendations were strong enough—other things could be there—but, frankly, the Government’s response was bland, as if to say: “Yes, you have already got a designated clinician.” I do not know if many older people know that, and I speak as somebody with a 97 year-old father-in-law. The truth is that it is left to the family. It is left to the individual, the family, the carers, the friends, and so on. That is another manifestation of inequality, because of access to having people who can help you.

I liked the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, that maybe this can be picked up in the forthcoming Bill or the debate in the House about it. But I would like to ask the Minister if he recognises that there is inadequate co-ordination and oversight of older people’s health and medication. Will he ensure that the department and the NHS do more to address this?

My second point refers to the committee itself. The whole document treats older people as a problem and a burden, but what about the contribution and value that they—or perhaps we—bring to society? One may say that is not within the scope of what the committee was looking at, but I have seen a lot of evidence that having a meaning and purpose in life is good for your health. However, being undervalued and seen as helpless—as most of us are reduced to being helpless when in the health system—or not being in control, which is a vital part of one’s health and self-esteem, is bad. We should not forget that whole range of issues. They are susceptible to good evidence, good policy and good thinking that recognises the role and contribution of older people. There is an admirable focus in the report on the causes of ill health, but there needs also to be thought about the causes of health. There needs to be more research in that area.

I shall also pick up a point that the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, raised, even though he is not in his place. I do not disagree with him on the importance of research but this is about research and society; it is not one or the other but both. Research is vital but he caricatured public health as being about advising young people to do healthy things. That is not often going to work; I suspect I agree with him. Having said that, just by chance this morning I was on a webinar Zoom call with Everton Football Club, which is doing remarkable things to teach young people about health using that very strong force of role models, so that area is not a guaranteed failure.

A good public health approach is much more about enabling people to have a good life, in the sense of making sure that they are secure. Love comes into this, as does education, opportunity and all the things that enable people to be all they can be. It is what Aristotle referred to as eudaimonia and is normally referred to as human flourishing. The public health aspect of dealing with inequalities, but going wider than that, is really important. This committee is right to have picked up both the biological science in research and the society aspects.

Let me pick up one final point. In its last chapters— I think it is recommendations 20 to 23— the report presses the Government on how serious they are about this challenge and how determined they are to do it. Have they got somebody in charge of it? Is there going to be the impetus, energy, support and mobilisation to make something happen? Those are really important issues. Again, I thought the government response on this was bland, at best. There was no indication of the energy and importance of this issue in the way that it needs to be taken forward. Will the Minister reassure the Committee that it is not only about whether the grand challenges are going ahead in this form, but that these issues around health, ageing, science and technology are to be picked up in the appropriate fashion?