NHS: Equitable Access

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank the noble Baroness for her Question and join the whole House in wishing many happy returns to the NHS on its 70th birthday. She asked an extremely good question: how do we make sure that the NHS is equipped for the future and that everybody can benefit from the technological advances we are seeing take place? I point her in the direction of three issues. First, the National Institute for Health Research has more than £1 billion of funding and supports the translation of research into new technology every day. It is based in the NHS and uses NHS staff. I have also recently commissioned the department to look at the money spent on innovation, which we think is around £750 million in total, to make sure that it supports the uptake of effective medicines and treatments better than it does today, and to make sure that staff have time. Finally, in response to her last question, as we set out during the passage of the withdrawal Act, we will align ourselves to the clinical trials regulation as much as possible, whatever the outcome of Brexit.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, as a member of the Parliament choir I am a bit tempted to start singing, but I will resist. Given the remarkable success of the various vaccination programmes during the 70-year history of the NHS, will the Minister say when preventive measures for two modern-day diseases will be made equitably and nationally available? I refer to pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV, which has already been shown by the trials to be remarkably effective, and vaccination against human papillomavirus, which should be made available for teenage boys as well as teenage girls to ensure full protection.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am sorry that the noble Baroness has not started singing; I am sure that we would have all joined in. As she rightly said, the NHS carried out the first major public vaccination programme in the world. We have always led the world in vaccination programmes. As she said, prophylaxis has been deemed to be successful; I will need to write to her on the specifics of the rollout. On the HPV vaccine and its availability for boys, we are still waiting for the final recommendations of the joint committee on vaccinations. We will act on those as soon as we get them.