Health: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Baroness Wilkins Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I will be happy to write to the noble Baroness on that matter, as I have not been briefed on it.

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, both my brothers and my father died after years of breathlessness, which is an appalling condition. Can the Minister say why pulmonary rehabilitation courses are being closed around the country, despite being recommended by the NICE guidelines?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am concerned to hear the noble Baroness’s comments because I know that an enormous amount of good work is going on around the country. There are programmes to encourage clinical leadership, improvement projects designed to integrate services, a commissioning toolkit, benchmarking data on outcomes and tools to aid local campaigns. If the services designed to help COPD patients are being diluted in any way, I should be very concerned about that and interested to hear the details.