Pharmacies: Funding

Debate between Lord McColl of Dulwich and Lord Prior of Brampton

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord raises an important point. There is no doubt that community pharmacies are vital to all people, but particularly to those living in isolated rural communities. There will be a pharmacy access fund based around isolation and local health needs of the population. We are consulting with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee over that issue at the moment. I assure the noble Lord that we are fully aware of the issue he raises.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s plans will squeeze all pharmacies, resulting in the closure of the least-viable ones—which are often in the poorest districts where they cannot easily diversify. Why do the Government not undertake a means assessment to find out which pharmacies are essential? Closing pharmacies will put even greater pressure on overworked GPs.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I assure my noble friend that not all pharmacies will be squeezed equally, as he put it. A pharmacy access fund will ensure that greater resources go to those pharmacies which serve isolated communities in rural areas, and a pharmacy integration fund will ensure that we encourage pharmacies to work more closely with primary care.

Sugar Tax

Debate between Lord McColl of Dulwich and Lord Prior of Brampton

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister give us an assurance that when the new policy comes out to tackle obesity we will not fall into the trap of saying that the answer is exercise? You have to run for miles and miles to take off a single pound of fat.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, exercise may be a part of our strategy to tackle obesity, but certainly not the major part.

National Health Service: In-Patients with Learning Disabilities

Debate between Lord McColl of Dulwich and Lord Prior of Brampton

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I tried to explain the difference between avoidable deaths and excess deaths earlier in my answers, without trying to make any political point about it. There is an important distinction to be made, and I hope that I made it. I agree with the noble Lord that this is a very serious issue, and the Government are approaching it in a very serious way.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that clinicians meet regularly to discuss all their complications, and that these meetings are extremely valuable and relevant? Have politicians considered the possibility that they might meet every week to discuss their mistakes?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I am sure that it would be a very long meeting. My noble friend is right that mortality and morbidity meetings are extremely important in hospitals. It would seem that practice is very variable across hospital trusts and I know that part of what Sir Bruce Keogh, the medical director of the NHS, is doing is trying to develop, along with Monitor and the CQC, a governance structure around mortality that all hospitals can learn from.

Child Health: Play

Debate between Lord McColl of Dulwich and Lord Prior of Brampton

Monday 12th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I wonder whether Members of this House might like to set an example in that regard as well by running a mile a day. There is no doubt that exercise is good for you. Not only is it good for all the problems associated with weight but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that exercise helps with mental health problems. Whether you are running or on your bike, I am wholly in favour of it.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, although exercise is very important in terms of the heart and so on, the real answer is to eat fewer calories. We may criticise politicians of one party, but does the Minister realise that politicians of all three parties kept on saying that the answer to the obesity epidemic was exercise when it was nothing of the kind? It was eating fewer calories.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

Clearly, my noble friend is right: nutrition and diet are fundamental to the whole debate about obesity. That does not alter the fact that exercise is also very good for you.

Health: Detection Dogs

Debate between Lord McColl of Dulwich and Lord Prior of Brampton

Thursday 17th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

Is the Minister aware that diagnosis may be helped not only by dogs, but by ants in India? One way in which to detect diabetes is to get the patient to urinate up a wall, and if the ants crawl up the column of urine it means that there is diabetes because sugar is there, and ants like sugar. It is a very cheap way to diagnose diabetes.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I seem to remember a noble Baroness asking a question about ferrets climbing up someone’s trousers. Now we have ants climbing up people’s trouser legs. We are open to all sensible suggestions.