NHS: Wound Care

Earl of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Liverpool (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Kakkar, if I may call him that. He always speaks with great knowledge on medical matters and I will not be able to follow him down the same path, as I unfortunately have no medical qualifications. I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for enabling us to have this important debate. I am sorry that he is not able to be here with us, as I know he is keenly interested in the subject. I, like other noble Lords, was looking forward to hearing what the noble Lord would have to say but the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, covered his unavoidable absence well and set the scene for tonight’s debate.

I say straightaway that I have no medical background nor any interest to declare in this matter, other than as a somewhat accident-prone individual who has had more than his fair share of injuries and operations where wound care has been an issue. We are told in the briefing papers from the House of Lords Library that the NHS treats an estimated 2.2 million wounds each year, at an estimated cost of £5 billion. Several noble Lords have already mentioned this, but having done the maths I have worked out that it comes out at an average cost per individual wound of £2,300. Quite obviously, this is an extremely costly problem, which we must address. It is imperative that less expensive and more effective ways are found of dealing with these injuries as a matter of urgency; I am sure that we could all agree on that. We are running out of options as far as antibiotics are concerned, and I believe that we need to turn to Mother Nature for help.

I was introduced to the amazing healing properties of one product in nature’s armoury some 25 years ago, while taking on the somewhat ambitious project of building a house on a remote hillside 1,500 feet up on the Greek island of Samos. I was being helped by four or five locals from the nearby village and work was progressing well, until I stumbled and cut my hand quite badly. One of the men dashed off into the forest nearby and came back, moments later, with several pine tree branches. He proceeded to milk them of their sap, which he then used to completely cover the wound. It was then bandaged with an old shirt—I hope noble Lords are keeping up. I never had to go to hospital or have any other intervention. After three more applications of pine sap over the course of a week, the wound had completely healed and there was no scar tissue. I have since looked up the healing properties of pine sap on the internet and discovered that it is not only antiseptic but an anti-inflammatory.

Since then, another even more extraordinary product of Mother Nature has come to my attention, and that is honey. My noble friend Lord Colwyn spoke persuasively and movingly about this when he mentioned reactive oxygen, but in fact the main component of the product I will talk about is honey. I said a little earlier that I am somewhat prone to accidents, and honey has now supplanted pine sap as my wonder potion. My noble friend Lady Harding, who sadly is not in her place tonight, first told me about it as she had had astonishingly successful results from applying manuka honey to the badly injured leg of one of her horses. I thought that I had better try it myself and I subsequently used manuka honey to good effect on burns and cuts.

More recently, I have been using Surgihoney reactive oxygen. This can be bought on the internet and rapidly destroys the bacteria that cause wound infection, including MRSA. It can be used for all stages of healing on a wide range of acute and chronic wound types including leg ulcers, pressure injuries, burns and surgical wounds. The Surgihoney website has a 20-minute video on it, which I venture to recommend to anyone with an interest in this subject. It shows the near-miracle healing properties of this product.

My question to my noble friend the Minister arises from an Answer that the then Minister, my noble friend Lord Prior, gave to a Written Question from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. It was answered on 10 March 2016 when my noble friend Lord Prior said:

“In order to progress this work, from April 2016 a new NHS Clinical Evaluation Team will be put in place. The Clinical Evaluation Team will assess wound care products through a comprehensive evaluation process, which will have extensive engagement with NHS clinical staff”.


Can my noble friend the Minister assure me that that NHS clinical evaluation team will include, or is including, Surgihoney reactive oxygen as one of the products in its wound care assessment? I will quite understand if he is unable to answer this evening, but a letter in due course would be much appreciated.