Health and Social Care Bill

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, my name was on many of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Willis of Knaresborough, in Committee about promoting research. As someone who has been involved in or trying to do clinical research for many years—I declare an interest as a member of the council of the Medical Research Council—I commend the Government and welcome the amendments. They open up the possibility for commissioning groups to promote research in many ways, such as promoting clinical trials and encouraging the development of tissue banks, proper bioinformatics and proper audit and record-keeping. That will open up the field of stem cell therapy, bioinformatics, regenerative medicine and genomics, which will be very good for the NHS.

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin]

My Lords, I, too, put my name to the amendments in Committee that have helped to precipitate this very welcome government amendment and the support of the Minister. I do not want to repeat what has already been said but I want to make one point: we in the House of Lords have worked hard to promote the importance of research in the NHS, and we will take a strong interest in the mechanisms that I am sure the Minister will describe in a moment, and indeed later on Report, to see how this duty will be promoted and evaluated. There are also important mechanisms in this House through the Science and Technology Committee, and I hope that many of the noble Lords who are on that committee will bear that in mind when it comes to looking at how this welcome duty is put into practice.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

My Lords, I would also like to formally record an enormous welcome to these changes to the Bill. What has been said in particular by the noble Lords, Lord Willis and Lord Warner, is very pertinent regarding the need to keep questioning. The one thing now that can happen is that those who are actively involved in research can actually question if they get blocked, in a way that they could not before. I think that they will be very bright and questioning people who will make it known if they are not able to do the research that they see needs to be done for the improvement of clinical services.

Indeed, if we can speed up the processes, perhaps we can create an environment in which all patients and relatives understand that a research-rich environment is one that drives up standards of care, and therefore that they are not being experimented on but are being invited to participate when there is equipoise in the highest standards of monitoring that they could possibly have. The governance around research processes in this country is potentially second to none. We may then regain some of those external trials that up until now have, sadly, been bleeding from our shores. The amendments are incredibly important and their universal welcome is very appropriate. The Minister is to be personally congratulated.