Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Northbourne and Lord MacKenzie of Culkein

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord MacKenzie of Culkein]

I have put my name to Amendment 202 which deals with general practitioners. I do not intend to detain the Committee because the points I was going to make have already been eloquently made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and others. I want to reiterate the point about general practitioners not identifying alcohol misuse. For the life of me, I cannot understand why there is no quality assessment framework indicator for screening for alcohol and why that is not part of the programme. There is evidence that screening works, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, said. It is clinically cost-effective. There is an urgent need to prioritise the issue of alcohol abuse, and this amendment gives us that opportunity. I hope that the Minister will be able to say something positive about that this evening.

[Lord Northbourne]

I rise to support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. One thing that has so far not been mentioned is that it is important to think about the alternatives to alcohol and to regular alcohol use. I used to spend a certain amount of time with very disadvantaged young people, and a great deal of their problem was boredom, inferiority complexes and no belief that there was any real future for them, so let us also think about all sorts of other things that they might be doing.