Medical Innovation Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Giddens and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Friday 24th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, I am neither a medical specialist nor a lawyer and it is pretty near impossible to follow a speech such as that given by my noble friend Lord Winston. However, I am a sociologist and we deal in unintended, or what we often call perverse, consequences. Therefore, to me it is highly important that this Bill, which itself is an innovation, covers the question of whether perverse consequences could arise and whether the Bill could therefore end up subverting some of its own intentions.

With this in mind, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, to think again about Amendments 13, 15 and 17 and perhaps to be a bit less dismissive of them than he was in his speech, because I think they would enrich the Bill. A clinical ethics committee would be a more robust way of affirming decisions than the existing way in the Bill. Amendment 13 spells out procedure to be followed. More importantly, it also insists that written records are kept. Critics say that it would add to the bureaucracy but there is no reason why such a committee could not be quite small and have a limited brief.

I regard Amendment 17 as very important. It is crucial that if it becomes law the Bill applies to very specific and limited circumstances. Especially important in my view, and I again speak as a lay person with no direct expertise, are the clauses limiting the legislation to drug treatments and excluding surgery and conditions involving acute trauma. It is important to spell these things out and I do not think they in any way undermine the Bill. They could contribute to what I think should be a key concern of noble Lords to close any avenues to perverse consequences that could arise, especially with legislation dealing with vulnerable people. We all know the issues here are twofold—what do you do about reckless doctors and how do you make sure that vulnerable patients are not exploited? The more loopholes we can close, the better for the progress of the Bill.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 15 and I hope that the Minister will give it due consideration. It is really important that the process laid out in the Bill is recorded in the patient’s clinical record. That is the one way that you can verify that things have been done properly. It is also important that there is notification to the central register, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi.

I also hope that the Minister will be able to give due consideration to the situations already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and others. It is very important that we do not make it more complicated than it is already for clinicians to be able to treat patients as they feel appropriate. It is also important that patients have the appropriate safeguards in place. While quite a lot will go into guidance, there is merit in having emergency treatment actually in the Bill as a situation where the Bill would not apply and that treatment in the best interests of the patient in an emergency can proceed by whichever means appear to be best at the time.