NHS: Anti-obesity Medication
Debate between Lord Cryer and Lord Rennard
Lord Cryer (Lab)
I am grateful for the question. What the right reverend Prelate is really talking about is conditions rather than medicine, which touches on an important part of the 10-year plan for health that was introduced recently by the incoming Government. That is about moving towards a system of prevention rather than cure. Prevention is always more sensible than cure and, in the longer term, it is actually a great deal cheaper as well. The right reverend Prelate talked about social and economic conditions that will take a long time to address, with the best will in the world.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, I have recently become a user of a weight-loss injection, on medical advice and in order to improve my diabetic control. Does the Minister not think that we need to move on from the current short-term system of assessing the value of drugs to a much longer-term consideration of cost-benefit analysis measured over some decades, taking into account the benefits of things such as improving health and emotional well-being, reducing the costs of other NHS treatments, including for depression and anxiety, and considering in the long run the benefits of more people paying HMRC and fewer needing support from the DWP?
Lord Cryer (Lab)
I appreciate what the noble Lord says but, again, the processes that lead to drugs becoming available on the NHS are extremely rigorous. The noble Lord seemed to imply, or he said, that the processes that lead to drugs becoming available on the NHS were somehow curtailed or somehow short. They are not. They go on for a very long time. The latest obesity drug has been going through those processes for many months and is still not available. It might be available in the very near future, but it is not available at the moment because it is going through such a rigorous process.