HIV and AIDS: Vaccine

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Walton of Detchant

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend rightly highlights the link between HIV and TB. The IAVI has developed new approaches to HIV vaccine research by focusing on the needs of developing countries and early-stage research. The TB Alliance has four combinations of drugs in late-stage development, and will soon launch a trial of a combination of drugs that are suitable for those who are co-infected with both diseases.

[Lord Walton of Detchant (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness accept that the major problem in identifying and preparing a vaccine against HIV is that the very term “HIV” stands for “human immunodeficiency virus”, and the consequence is that the virus itself disables the immune system to a very considerable degree? Since the discovery of a vaccine depends on stimulating the immune system to produce a vaccine, this is an exceptionally difficult and challenging scientific problem.

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord is absolutely spot on.

Ebola

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Walton of Detchant

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

There was indeed a report and it had very sensible recommendations. When we finally get past this crisis, which I hope will be relatively soon—but who knows?—it is extremely likely that many lessons will be learnt as to how the international community and nations play their part in dealing with crises like this. We have many lessons to learn.

[Lord Walton of Detchant (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of any research on the availability of serum derived from blood samples from individuals who have survived the Ebola infection and could such serum be used to confer temporary passive immunity on healthcare workers who have been accidentally exposed to the virus?

Health: Children's Heart Services

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Walton of Detchant

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

My Lords—

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that these should be brief interventions. We have only had two thus far and we are seven minutes in. I suggest we hear the Bishop, then from these Benches and we try to get around.

Ingram National Park Visitor Centre

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Walton of Detchant

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has decided to close Ingram National Park Visitor Centre in the Breamish Valley in Northumberland.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, the Defra grant for the Northumberland National Park Authority this year is £2.9 million. It is for individual parks to decide on their spending priorities. The Northumberland National Park Authority has decided to close this centre as part of a wider review of all its visitor services.

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that disappointing reply. Is she aware that this well appointed centre, situated in an area of outstanding natural beauty, provides not only excellent car parking but the only public toilets for miles, a delightful woodland walk and a series of superb displays highlighting the history, geology, flora and fauna of the Cheviot area, displays of great educational value? Will she try to persuade Defra to think again and to try just a little harder to save this invaluable centre?

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I remind the noble Lord that it was not Defra that made this decision but the Northumberland National Park. It is of course of great regret to us when such closures take place. The park is working very closely with the Ingram village hall and the displays that the noble Lord mentions will in fact be moved there, as I understand it, so that they are still available to people. The park is also offering additional information points in local businesses such as shops, pubs and community centres. There will also be additional services offered by the park rangers. I would point out that on Hadrian’s Wall the park will have the great advantage of a new centre, The Sill, which is getting Heritage Lottery Fund money. It will become a major centre there and the noble Lord may wish to visit it.

Health and Social Care Bill: HIV/AIDS Programmes

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Walton of Detchant

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I have been allocated much more time for this Question than my colleague was for the previous one, so I apologise if I am taking too long to answer. The noble Lord will have to wait to see how that transpires.

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that one of the difficult problems in the area of prevention is the fact that it is not ethically possible to take a blood sample to test an individual for HIV without their informed consent? The problem that arises is that a number of people who are at risk refuse to give consent, even though they continue to have sexual contact, and that is very difficult to overcome.

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. From my other area of international development, I know only too well that that is true world wide. Things have improved enormously in the United Kingdom, where people with HIV are now living normal lives and there is much less discrimination than there used to be. That helps in encouraging people to come forward for testing. However, the noble Lord is absolutely right and it is extremely important that we reduce the stigma so that they are content to do so.

Health: Tropical Diseases

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Walton of Detchant

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

My Lords, now that smallpox has been eradicated from the world and that the same may soon be true of poliomyelitis and that vaccines for malaria and many other neglected tropical diseases are in an advanced stage of development, this development by government is most welcome. Is the Minister satisfied that there are sufficient training opportunities in tropical medicine in this country to enable doctors to be trained who wish to work in the tropics on the eradication of these diseases?

[Baroness Northover]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. The prospects before us are astonishing. I have just mentioned the United Kingdom universities and their research centres. I know that various noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, are playing a part in trying to ensure just that.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Walton of Detchant

Monday 19th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I am more than happy to write to the noble Baroness. In the discussions that I have had with various organisations, including the HPC, that is not the conclusion that I come away with. I hope that she is reassured.

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

I apologise for interrupting and I do not wish to prolong the debate but the noble Baroness was kind enough to refer to my presence at the General Medical Council, which ended in 1989. Things have changed a little since that time. Of course, the GMC was concerned primarily with standards of education and ensuring that those who were properly educated and qualified were fit to practise in the first instance. Secondly, it was concerned with fitness to practise and with individuals in the profession who deviated from proper standards of practice as defined by the standards committee. It was concerned with the ethics of the profession and with ongoing and further education as well as with many other responsibilities. My understanding was that all those matters were within the ambit of the General Social Care Council in relation to its responsibilities. When the General Social Care Council transfers to the Health Professions Council, can we be assured that all those responsibilities that fall to the General Social Care Council, which is very young and only just finding its way, will be taken on board?

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Walton of Detchant

Monday 5th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

Before the Minister writes to the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, with a definition of emergency, could she clarify whether we are talking in this Bill about medical emergencies, such as serious epidemics, or whether we are also talking about terrorist attacks, floods and natural disasters, all of which may require the deployment of medical resources? It is important that that should be clarified.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I will write to noble Lords if it is not that wide a definition, but my assumption is that it is the wider definition that needs to be covered.

As a brief response to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, I can say that much of this will be in regulations. I know that the previous Government had problems when they said that they would put something in regulations. The House would say that it wanted to know while it passed a Bill exactly what it would be, but a distinction needs to be drawn between the kind of things that you want in the Bill, where there needs to be an architecture and structure that gives flexibility, and the kind of precision and more detailed explanation that you have in regulations. The noble Lord will be familiar with that. If we can take anything further and outline what sort of things might be in the regulations, as the previous Government also sought to do, I am sure that we will.

NHS: Joint Replacement Procedures

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Walton of Detchant

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their forecast of the effect that proposed efficiency savings will have on the availability of joint replacement procedures in the National Health Service.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, decisions about whether patients receive procedures, including joint replacements, need to be taken by patients and clinicians together, based on high-quality clinical evidence.

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Is she aware that in 2010 1,200 fewer knee replacements and 350 fewer hip replacements were carried out in the National Health Service, that the Patients Association has said that there is evidence that waiting lists are increasing, and that the Medical Devices Agency says that companies that produce the prostheses for joint replacements are finding that demand is declining? Is it not likely that the so-called efficiency savings within the NHS will make this deteriorating situation even worse?

[Baroness Northover]

I thank the noble Lord for his Question and pay tribute to his long battle for patients in the NHS. I assure him that, if it is clinically appropriate for a patient to receive a joint replacement, they should do so. As noble Lords will no doubt know from their own experience and that of their relatives, people often find that their recovery is not as uneventful as they might have wished, and for some patients the joint replacement does not work as well as it might. There are other procedures. For some patients, the best road to go down may be that of other options, which may be a factor here. However, I assure the noble Lord that, if it is clinically advised that people should have a joint replacement, that is what is supposed to happen and, if there is any evidence that that is not being carried forward, we would certainly like to know.

Health: Hydrotherapy

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Walton of Detchant

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

Surely not. My noble friend has done a great deal herself to promote the potential psychological and physical benefits of hydrotherapy, and I am sure that she will continue to do so. Following her conversations with me over the past week or so, and at her request, I have sought for her and for other noble Lords with an interest in this area a meeting with the relevant Minister in the Department of Health, my honourable friend Anne Milton. That has been agreed and therefore I hope that the noble Baroness and others will be able to take this further forward.

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Muscular Dystrophy last year carried out a major survey of facilities across the UK for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy—to which the noble Baroness referred—and discovered that boys with that very serious progressive disease who live in places like Newcastle, Oxford, London around Queen Square, and Oswestry, survive into their 30s and sometimes even their 40s, whereas in other parts of the UK they still die in their teens? There is evidence that in the rehabilitation of these patients, hydrotherapy plays an extremely important role. What efforts are the Government making to make certain that this form of treatment, which is invaluable, becomes more widely available across the United Kingdom?