Medical Abortion Pills

Lord Patel Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for informing me about that—it is something I have learned today. I will take it back and consider what he has said. To return to the Question, when we made this measure it was clear that it was supposed to be temporary. Will have consulted and will look at the consultation and decide what we will do. If we do go back to what it was like before, we will make sure there is a sufficient period to ensure there is no cliff edge.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lord, to return to the original Question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, may I respectfully suggest that the Minister is trying to defend the indefensible? The evidence is quite clear about the safety of the procedure. We can have a debate about alternative views, but the evidence from other countries which routinely use this method of treatment is clear: it is safe and more convenient for women, and it should be implemented immediately. Will he take this back to the Department of Health?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I think the noble Lord is being slightly unfair. It is a complicated issue and not as simple as people make out. The noble Baroness said that we should be aware of dangers. These are the issues that we considered during the consultation. Whatever we do, we will be criticised— rightly so—but we want to make sure that when we make a decision it is the right decision.

Health and Care Bill

Lord Patel Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 9th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Etherton (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 311 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger. The heart of the complaint which has prompted the amendment is that the Bill fails to provide a proper balance between the role of the HSSIB and the role and standing of the PHSO, and it fails to recognise and provide for the PHSO to be treated as part of the HSSIB’s safe space under the Bill.

The Bill’s prohibition on disclosure by the HSSIB to the PHSO of material obtained by the HSSIB in connection with its investigation of incidents that may have implications for patient safety impedes the statutory functions of the PHSO, diminishes the standing of the PHSO, is contrary to the independent, non-judicial constitutional role of the PHSO, and is contrary to the UK’s obligations as a member of the Council of Europe and the United Nations regarding ombudsmen.

The PHSO in his role—and it is a “he” at the moment —as the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration acts pursuant to the statutory framework in the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967; and, as the Health Service Ombudsman, he acts pursuant to the Health Service Commissioners Act 1993. Under those statutes, his role is to investigate complaints by members of the public who claim to have suffered maladministration or to have sustained injustice or hardship in the delivery of a health service.

The legislation which I have just mentioned effectively gives the PHSO unrestricted access to evidence and other information in order to carry out his investigations fully and effectively. As the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, has said and as is obvious, there will often be an overlap between the work of the PHSO and that of the HSSIB both in respect of particular incidents and in relation to general inadequacies in practice and procedure—reference has been made to eating disorders and learning disabilities. There are very limited exceptions under the Bill for disclosure by the HSSIB of protected material to third parties. These do not include routine disclosure of evidence and information which is relevant to investigations by the PHSO, who will be able to obtain such material only if he obtains an order from the High Court. This is so even if both the PHSO and HSSIB are investigating the same incident and even if the PHSO in his capacity as parliamentary commissioner is investigating a complaint by a person of maladministration on the part of the HSSIB itself. This simply does not make any sense.

Notwithstanding the observations made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, it seems that the restriction on disclosure is based on a misunderstanding about the confidentiality of material held by the PHSO and about the safe space in which he currently operates. The legislation governing the PHSO provides that he must conduct his investigations “in private”. Subject to limited exceptions, the PHSO is not permitted to disclose to third parties information obtained in the course of an investigation. Disclosure cannot be made by the PHSO in any circumstances where that would be contrary to the public interest. Information obtained by the PHSO is also subject to absolute exemption from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. No persons are identified in the PHSO’s reports, and names are anonymised. Mirroring the safe space provisions in the Bill for HSSIB investigations, reports of the PHSO do not apportion blame to individuals, and do not assess or determine civil or criminal liability or whether disciplinary action needs to be taken.

Furthermore and critically, the terms of the proposed amendment would impose a complete legal block, prohibiting the disclosure to a third party of any protected material disclosed to the PHSO by the HSSIB except by order of the High Court, and then only for certain very limited purposes. The effect of the existing statutory provisions and the conditions in the amendment prohibiting disclosure to third parties mean that the PHSO and the HSSIB fall legally and naturally within the same safe space.

As presently worded, this will be the first occasion on which the PHSO’s access to information will have been curtailed. At the same time, in extending the right of disclosure of the HSSIB’s protected material to coroners, the Bill discloses an incomprehensible inconsistency, since not only are inquests increasingly adversarial, as has been noted by a number of speakers, but such disclosure is not allowed by the PHSO under the PHSO’s governing legislation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, has said, ombudsmen are internationally regarded as having a constitutional role in addressing the imbalance of power between the individual and the providers of public services, and in their autonomy and independence from the executive and judicial branches of government. That constitutional role is enshrined in the Venice principles adopted in 2019 by the Council of Europe and by the UN’s General Assembly in 2020. A written opinion of the Venice Commission, published in October 2021, concluded that the exclusion of the PHSO from the safe space created by the Bill, and denying the PHSO to full access to the HSSIB’s protected material, would be contrary to the Venice principles. It would therefore place the United Kingdom in breach of its international obligations. The amendment is, for all those reasons, both necessary and desirable.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I will try to be brief, and to cover the points about the exercise of a patient safety investigation and learning from it, which is the important part. My name is on amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. I listened carefully to my noble friend Lady Neuberger and my noble and learned friend Lord Etherton. I could not argue with him on constitutional matters; I would not even try to. But I can say this: after nearly five years of experience as chairman of the National Patient Safety Agency, which carried out such investigations—it was an arm’s-length body rather than a statutory one—the purpose of the exercise is to use an index case, where an event may have led to harm to a patient, to learn if there was a systems failure. If an event happened in one hospital, the chances were that it was also happening in other hospitals. The aim was to do an in-depth, root-cause analysis to get the necessary evidence in detail, and to find out where the systems failure might be occurring. I can give you several examples of what happens and how it can be corrected.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and with my noble friends that the coroners should not be able to invade the safe space and access the protected material. If I was asked to choose between the coroner and the PHSO, I would choose the PHSO, because of the less adversarial way of dealing with matters.

There are two problems in the legislation. One is compulsion: as a doctor, I will be compelled to give the evidence and the information required by the HSSIB to investigate a case and to find out where the systems failure might be. That compulsion comes with a protection—that the information I give will be completely protected from being used by anybody else against me or in any other legal procedures that may arise. That will give the health professionals or anybody else the confidence required that there is openness, honesty and transparency, because the purpose is to have as much information as necessary to find the systems failure that may occur.

If you look at the list of the 22 investigations carried out by the HSIB so far, you will find that they tend to be generic. I could read out the list, but I will not. They are not about individual investigations. I take the point that the PHSO’s role is to protect against harm done to an individual but also to deal with the system failures that may occur—I get that. My plea would be that to make the HSSIB a success, the principle of protecting the information given in confidence is a key part of the whole process. If that confidence is destroyed in any way at all, the whole exercise will not work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, it is regrettable that we are dealing with the very important Clauses 88 and 89 at this time of night—and obviously it is regrettable that the House has to have me as a poor substitute for the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.

These amendments relate to the abolition of the Health and Social Care Information Centre and the implications for the integrity of patient data. Clauses 88 and 89 give the Secretary of State powers through regulations to transfer a function from one relevant body to another, and the relevant bodies are defined as Health Education England, the Health and Social Care Information Centre, the Health Research Authority, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Human Tissue Authority and NHS England. Other than NHS England, each of those bodies can be abolished under the clause as the result of a transfer of functions.

Amendment 227 to Clause 88 refers to the abolition of the Health and Social Care Information Centre. The Government have announced that they will be using the powers in that clause to merge NHS Digital to form part of the new transformation directorate within NHSE, and of course we have seen that NHSX has now been abolished and the relevant personnel have moved into the transformation directorate. The Health and Social Care Information Centre is an executive non-departmental public body created by statute, usually known by the term “NHS Digital”. This amendment, which would prevent that from happening to the HSCIC, is designed to ensure that NHS Digital continues as an entity to safeguard patient data. The merger of NHS Digital with NHSE risks losing the skills and experience that currently sit within NHS Digital. I have mentioned that NHSX has ceased to exist.

There are two risks for patients. One is that important knowledge and skills will be lost as talented people leave the organisation and time is devoted to the nuts and bolts of making the organisation function rather than on achieving its aims. The other is that the new merged organisation will just be too big and unwieldy to respond in an agile way to major challenges such as workforce planning and digital innovation. If NHSE leaders understand how important these challenges are then they will be able to prioritise them and make them part of the organisation’s core function.

I turn to the functions of the statutory safe havens in relation to Clause 89. Part 9 in Chapter 2 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 lays out the functions and obligations of what is described as the statutory safe haven for patient data from across the health and social care system required for the production of national statistics and for commissioning, regulatory and research purposes, in addition to supporting patient care. Amendment 228 seeks to keep these statutory protections in place and ensure that NHS England does not take on that responsibility, because of a potential conflict of interest in its role.

The bottom line is that we need to retain NHS Digital’s statutory safe haven functions separate from NHS England. As the BMA has said, it is of the utmost importance to retain a quasi-autonomous body for the purposes of collecting, storing and distributing sensitive patient data—something that would be lost under a merger of NHSD and NHSE.

There is one other major advantage of keeping NHS Digital as the digital safe haven. The statutory safe haven’s legal name is the Health and Social Care Information Centre, so there is some obligation to social care. NHSD has always given some thought to integration, even when there was very little on the social care side to integrate with, and little interest from NHSE in doing that work itself. If it all gets merged into NHSE then how will the obligation to collect social care data continue to exist, since NHSE’s responsibility is to the NHS? If this transfer of functions takes place, who will be responsible for the national collection of social care data? Each bit of the social care world will see NHSE as a different entity from NHS Digital. What are the Government’s joining-up plans in respect of the future governance of this kind of data? I beg to move.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 229 and 230. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for adding their names to them. The House of Lords Constitution Committee report on the Bill raises serious concerns about the range of Secretary of State powers in the Bill and concludes that these new powers, coupled with new powers for the Secretary of State of oversight, delegation and transfer of function,

“could alter the balance between the Government’s constitutional responsibility for the provision of health care and providers’ ability to function in a manner that can respond effectively to local needs. It also risks undermining accountability by making it more difficult to understand which body is responsible for a particular function of the NHS.”

That is a claim that we must take seriously.

All the amendments in the group are important but, as has already been said, the hour is late and we need to rush so we cannot discuss them fully.

As the Bill is drafted, the Secretary of State would have the power to confer, abolish or change the function of a list of bodies that includes NHS England, Health Education England and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, to name but a few. One safeguard included in the Bill in relation to NHS England is that the Secretary of State would stop short of changes that would make NHS England redundant—but “redundant” is not defined. However, nothing on the face of the Bill sets out how high or low that bar would be set.

I recognise the logic of the Secretary of State having powers to confer responsibilities on arm’s-length bodies via secondary legislation. However, these new powers are far more extensive than that, and there is a real danger that their application could threaten the operational independence of key parts of the NHS. The Secretary of State should not have the power to abolish a body such as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, or to transfer the majority of its powers. Health Education England and the Health Research Authority were established through the Care Act 2014. If the Secretary of State believes that any of these bodies should be abolished or have functions removed, Parliament should have the opportunity to debate and understand why he desires to take that action, hence my amendment to reduce the scope of these powers and remove the Secretary of State’s powers.

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords, after consultation with the clerks and for the convenience of the Committee, I have moved my Amendment 318 into this group. Before I speak to it, I say that, as a person who has culled a few quangos in his time, I think that the amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Patel, are important. Even I never had the nerve to actually abolish bodies set up by Parliament just because I thought that it would be a good idea. That seems to be the approach taken in some parts of this legislation. It is worth bearing in mind a point made already: that attracting skilled professional staff to many of these bodies would be much more difficult if they were in an omnibus body such as NHS England. Many high-quality professionals would not want to work in that environment.

The purpose of Amendment 318 is simple: to delay implementation of Parts 1 and 3 of the Bill until the Government have reduced substantially the huge backlog of patients awaiting NHS diagnosis and treatment. The amendment is based on the proposition that, however meritorious the NHS reorganisation that the Government propose is, implementing it when they have told the NHS that their top priority is reducing the backlog seems a considerable risk. As a former Health Minister, I regard this as highly ill-advised and not in the best interests of patients. Let me briefly set out the arguments.

In its report of 1 December, the NAO made clear the unprecedented scale of the backlog that the Government have finally faced up to. It has taken over two months for the Government to come to Parliament, which they did yesterday, to acknowledge the true scale of the backlog. Some 6 million patients are now known to be on the NHS waiting list; 300,000 of those have waited for over a year, and 18,000 for over two years. But the NHS data tells only part of the backlog story, as the NAO pointed out over two months ago. We know that 10 million patients have not come forward during the pandemic. The Health Secretary has acknowledged that it is unclear

“whether it will be 30% or 80%”

of this 10 million who come forward. We do not know how many of these people will request treatment. The Health Secretary said:

“Even if half of these people come forward, this is going to place huge demand on the NHS”.— [Official Report, 8/2/22; col. 805.]


The Institute for Fiscal Studies forecast

“a likely peak of between 8 and 11 million”

people on NHS waiting lists.

What will the new NHS plan do to deal with this? It says that the waiting lists should start to fall “around March 2024”. But that assurance is without knowing the true size of the waiting list, as the Secretary of State acknowledges. The Treasury—the good guys in all of this—wanted more ambitious NHS targets. Instead, the NHS has been allowed to retain a March 2025 deadline for dealing with the 300,000 patients waiting more than a year for treatment. This is the situation in which the Government are trying to introduce a major reorganisation of the NHS, and that is why I have put forward this amendment, which would defer implementation of Parts 1 to 3 of the Bill.

The Government, approved by Parliament, will be asking NHS staff to be pre-occupied with implementing the changes made in this Bill, while often changing jobs as new integrated care bodies and partnerships are established and made to work. The Government are asking them to do this at the same time as they are working to reduce this huge, unprecedented backlog of patients needing diagnosis and treatment.

When he took office, the current Health Secretary’s instinct was to scrap the Bill, and when it began its passage through Parliament the actual scale of the backlog was not known. The Health Secretary needs to return to his initial instinct, which was very sound, and postpone its passage. If he does not, he will be putting many NHS patients at unnecessary risk. I suspect the Minister will tell us that in many areas the boards and partnerships are ready to go. If he does, I would be interested to have a list of those areas, to save a parliamentary Question. If that is the Government’s position, I would be interested to know why the NHS has been allowed to do this before the Bill has been approved by Parliament and the expenditure authorised. Despite the dubious legality of implementing before Royal Assent the changes made in this Bill, Amendment 318 avoids unscrambling what I might call illicit reorganisations.

It is the job of this House to get the Commons to think again. That is what this amendment does. It does not wreck the Bill; it simply defers implementation until the NHS has the huge backlog of treatment under better control. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I originally had an amendment down to criminalise hymenoplasty in this Bill, but I have been pleased to withdraw that and put my name to the government amendment instead.

I asked a question on banning hymenoplasty of my noble friend Lord Kamall back in October. He gave me his word that he would push this as much as possible to make sure that we ban both virginity testing and hymenoplasty. He has kept to his word, and I am very grateful to him.

It is late in the evening—well, early in the morning—but I want very briefly to give your Lordships a first-hand account of why this is such an important amendment. Hafsah—which is not her real name—was raped as a child. Afterwards, her parents became obsessed with the idea of presenting her as “pure” on her wedding night, and her father told her that surgery would “fix her shame”. This surgery is widely available on Harley Street and in private clinics at a cost of around £2,000. In support of this amendment, Hafsah said:

“If hymenoplasty had been illegal when I was a teenager, it would have saved me a lot of emotional abuse. I’m sure it will be a great comfort to vulnerable girls in a similar position to know that the law is on their side. It should give them the strength to stand up for themselves.”


This ban on both virginity testing and hymenoplasty will be a substantial step forward in tackling the damaging myths and stigmas about virginity. Neither procedure has any medical benefit. Both are harmful practices that create and exacerbate social, cultural and political beliefs that attach a false value to women and girls in relation to whether they have a sexual history.

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for explaining the work that the Government will do on education in community and clinical settings. I hope that they will also ensure that they implement the other recommendations of the expert panel on hymenoplasty and sustainably fund the specialist organisations that support women and girls at risk of honour-based abuse.

Finally, there have been many campaigners involved over a number of years to bring about this change in the law: IKWRO, Karma Nirvana, MEWSo, Nimco Ali, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Midwives, Garden Court Chambers, Richard Holden MP, all those on the expert panel, and many others. I pay tribute to their hard work, tenacity, perseverance and patience. It has been my privilege to speak on their behalf in this place. This amendment will make a difference to the lives of many women and girls, and it has my full support.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to thank in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for so tenaciously making sure that this important amendment is passed. In my view, this is some of the most important legislation in the Bill. As the noble Baroness said, it will save a lot of young girls and women from a lot of pain and hardship. I was pleased to add my name to the amendment.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, very briefly in view of the early hour, I wish to join others in welcoming this amendment and thanking the Minister for taking notice of what the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, chair of All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, has done with other actors.

I want to make two points. First, the people who have brought the work to this point recognise that this practice, although rare, happens disproportionately within particular cultural and religious groups. I therefore ask the Minister whether the religious element of this will feature in the materials that are to be prepared.

Secondly, will FCDO staff learn lessons from the forced marriage legislation on how we spot young girls who are particularly vulnerable to this and particularly at risk of being taken abroad? Can I make the assumption that, were any medical practitioner registered in the United Kingdom to be found performing these operations abroad, they would still be dealt with by the medical authorities in this country when that came to light?

Covid-19: Lockdowns

Lord Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Before I answer any further questions, I should draw Members’ attention to my registered interests and more specifically to the fact that, when I was the academic research director of a think tank, I invited one of the authors of the paper to speak at an academic webinar. In fact, he did not speak on this issue; he spoke on Lebanese currency—quite different issues, as noble Lords can imagine.

I say in response to my noble friend that what is important is that we look not only at the epidemiological evidence and the medical evidence but, in considering government policy, at the wider range of social, economic and other factors. For example, even within clinical decisions, there were some asking for lockdown in order to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, but that was counterbalanced by mental health experts who were very concerned about the impact on mental health. As my noble friend will know, there are also trade-offs with the economy and other issues.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

Would the Minister agree that smoking causes cancer, that the earth is round and that, in a pandemic caused by a respiratory virus, asking people to stay at home at the height of the pandemic reduces transmission of infection? Furthermore, would he agree that meta-analysis is the right way to look at randomised control trials and how they perform but not the ideal method to look at observational studies, as referred to in the Question?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord makes important points. If we look at the history of the debate about the world being round, at one time scientists believed that the world was flat. Because of scepticism and contestability in science, we have been able to come to the conclusion that the world is round. That shows the importance of science being contestable and of having an open debate.

Health and Care Bill

Lord Patel Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Wednesday 9th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I shall try to be brief, otherwise we will be here until 3 am, and I am sure none of us want that. I join the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, in the comments she has made, and I support her amendment and the government amendments. I also agree that the system should be mandatory— not “may” but “shall”— and aligned with the similar system in the United States which I was used to many years ago.

To try to explore this further with the industry, I have been in correspondence with the ABPI to test how committed it is to agreeing to this being mandatory and that they “shall report” in all aspects. I will read what it sent me:

“ABPI are supportive of the intention to move to a mandatory model of disclosure for payments made between industry and relevant individuals including Health Professionals, and”


all healthcare organisations and research institutions. It continues:

“We believe proposals to introduce a legislative mandate are an opportunity to further strengthen the pharmaceutical sector’s existing transparency mechanism for branded medicines”—


that was the point I made to it, that its system needs to be transparent, mandatory and easily accessible by patients and the public. It goes on:

“Our briefing outlines a number of considerations and learnings based on ABPI’s experience running Disclosure UK, which since 2016 has supported transparency around transfers of value made by the innovative pharmaceutical industry to relevant individuals including Health Professionals … and Healthcare Organisations”.


I asked for a similar comment from industries that market medical devices, and I understand that a similar commitment is made by those companies too.

I therefore support the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and support the Government’s amendment. However, I hope that the Minister can confirm that the loose word “may” is not intentional and they intend to make this mandatory.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly, rather enjoying this reunion from our debates during the passage of the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill of a group of people who taught me a great deal about dealing with legislation. We also looked at an amendment that was very like this. There is a phrase I use often: “Campaigning works”. I should make that “Campaigning by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, works particularly well”. We are seeing real progress here, although, as many noble Lords have already said, we need to make sure that this is mandatory and not some kind of voluntary extra.

When I was working on the then Medicines and Medical Devices Bill, I spoke to a number of people from the industry. They were very much concerned about the fact that they wanted tight rules that apply to everybody, otherwise those who cut corners and push the envelope have a competitive advantage against people who doing the right thing, being absolutely open and not flinging money around. Many parts of the sector are keen on tight rules.

It is interesting that it has taken us so long to get to this point when the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, presented ways of doing this back in the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill. We have not heard the Government using their favourite phrasing “world-leading” or “world-beating” very often in this area. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, we are very much trailing behind other countries in our transparency here.

I will make one final comment. We have a huge problem with public trust—we see this on the street outside your Lordships’ House quite often. Absolute transparency and openness is crucial and, as we heard in Oral Questions earlier, the fact that some companies have been able to profiteer hugely from the pandemic causes more damage to public trust. We need to tackle that with as much of the sunlight of transparency and openness as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who took part in this debate, especially my noble friend Lady Cumberlege for her work on the independent review of medicines and medical devices, and other noble Lords who were involved in that. I know that she worked tirelessly to make sure that patients and their families have been heard and I pay tribute to her and her team. I also thank her for her lobbying—or reminding—me of the pledge that I made when I first became a Minister on championing the patient.

I welcome my noble friend’s amendment to increase transparency and promote public confidence in the healthcare system. The Government fully support the intention behind the amendment. That is why I will be moving Amendments 312B, 312C, 312D, 313B, 313C and 314ZB in my name. Before I do so, let me answer some of the questions.

All these amendments relate to the transparency of payments made to the healthcare sector. The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review led by my noble friend Lady Cumberlege listened to the brave testimony of over 700 people to understand where improvements needed to be made to make the healthcare system safer for all patients, especially women. The Government have given the review deep consideration and accepted the majority of its nine strategic recommendations and 50 actions for improvement.

To improve transparency, the review recommended that

“there should be mandatory reporting for pharmaceutical and medical device industries of payments made to teaching hospitals, research institutions and individual clinicians”.

The amendments deliver on this recommendation by enabling the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring companies to publish or report information about their payments to the healthcare sector. The clause covers any person performing healthcare as part of their duties, benefiting patients and building on initiatives by regulators and industry. I hope that partly answers the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens.

The amendment also allows for the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring that the information be made public and make further provision about when and how the information must be published. This could include requiring self-publication or publication in a central database. That ensures that we can adapt the system to improve reporting as necessary. To ensure that companies fulfil the obligation, requirements introduced by the regulations can be enforced using civil penalties.

There are benefits to this duty applying UK-wide, aligning with the approach taken by the pharmaceutical industry with its Disclosure UK system. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, referred to, the clause contains a statutory consent requirement, so we will work closely with the devolved Governments to develop regulations following the passage of the Bill. We will also work with patients, industry and healthcare providers to create a system that enhances patient confidence while maintaining a collaborative, world-leading UK life sciences sector.

A question was raised about the issue of “shall” versus “may”. The Government have not tabled these amendments in bad faith; we would not have tabled these amendments if we did not intend to work with them. It is the intention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to bring forward regulations under the clause to make sure that there is transparency. If that is not reassuring enough, perhaps between this stage and Report there can be some conversations to make sure that noble Lords are assured. It is for these reasons that I ask your Lordships’ Committee to support these amendments.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

Can the Minister confirm what he just said: that it is the intention to bring regulations? How strong is that intention? The “may” creates a problem.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, can I add a question about timeframes to that? When can we expect the regulations?

Elective Care Recovery

Lord Patel Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

We are looking at elective recovery all the way through; some of that will be in secondary care but, clearly, some of that will be in primary care. One of the issues that we want to be sure of is that we have more and more diagnoses, which is why we have rolled out many community diagnostic centres. We are looking to tackle the complete backlog, which is why we have committed an additional £2 billion this year and £8 billion over the next three years and why we will publish the elective recovery plan very soon.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, there are 20,000 more cases of cancer in the deprived population compared to other populations. Deprived people not only get cancers at a higher incidence but have late diagnoses, find it difficult to access the services and die earlier. What plans do the Government have to address this inequality in cancer outcomes?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord raises an important point. He may well have seen coverage last week about the cancer plan as well as the Secretary of State’s commitment to what he called a “war on cancer”, given his own experience and how many people have experience of losing a relative or loved one to cancer. That shows that diagnosis and treatment of cancer remain the top priority, and they will be prioritised with increased elective capacity. We encourage anyone with potential cancer symptoms to come forward. On health inequalities, the systems will be expected to analyse their waiting-list data by relevant characteristics, including age, deprivation and ethnicity, and by speciality. The aim is to develop a better understanding of local variations in access to and experience of treatment and to start developing detailed operational action plans to address any inequalities in treatment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government clearly recognise that there is a backlog, which is why we have announced the additional funding. We hope to announce the elective recovery plan very soon. The other measure that we have taken is launching My Planned Care, which allows NHS providers to upload supportive information to the platform to help patients to manage their conditions while they wait for treatment. There will also be personalised support, including advice on prevention services et cetera. We also hope that, eventually, it will have more data on expected waiting times, for example, so there will be more information for the patient. At the same time, we hope that the additional investment that we have announced will help to tackle the backlog in elective recovery.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, the 10-year cancer plan makes no mention of what new investment the Government will make towards achieving this world-beating plan. Compare that to what President Biden had said: that he intends to invest $2 trillion to find cures for cancers in a new, DARPA-style health ARPA. What investment are we going to make?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

If you look at international comparisons, the situation is clear, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has made it clear that he does not think it is good enough. That is why we have the cancer plan, which we will target. We understand the importance of speed and efficiency in dealing with potential cancer patients. That is why the Prime Minister announced the ambitious target to ensure that 75% of patients who have been urgently referred by their GP for suspected cancer will be diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days.

All the conversations I have had in the department about investing in research—an issue that many noble Lords have rightly raised—have been about the importance of research being not a bolt-on but integral to what clinicians do, and of it feeding in to better treatment for patients. Given that cancer is one of the Government’s priorities, I hope that far more research will feed in to better clinical outcomes.

NHS: Nurse Recruitment

Lord Patel Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I hope the noble Lord will forgive me if I tell him that I have not examined nurses’ garments in detail. In terms of provenance, it is important at the moment—and we are doing this on lots of equipment that comes to the UK—to ensure that it is not from regions where there is slave labour, or where the Muslim Uighurs are being persecuted by the Chinese Government. We need to do more; indeed, I have had conversations in the department to find out how we can trace the sources of the products and equipment that we buy to make sure that they are ethically sourced.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister has now said on several occasions that the Government will meet the target of 50,000 nurses. Can he tell us, if the Government do meet that target, what will the remaining deficit be?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am afraid I do not have the answer to that question, but I can certainly look into it. I am not sure what the deficit will be but, as I said, we are on course to recruit 50,000, not just from the UK and from different pathways—not only degrees and apprenticeships—but also from all over the world and not just Europe.

Health and Care Bill

Lord Patel Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 3 & Committee stage
Wednesday 26th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. She introduced them very comprehensively and I agree with what she said. My noble friend Lord Stevens of Birmingham added to it, so much has already been said and I need to be extremely brief.

I concur with my noble friend Lord Stevens of Birmingham that outside bodies, including professional organisations in medicine, oppose these powers and that they will lead to more chaos rather than solving problems. As a clinician, I find the unchecked powers for Secretaries of State over local service reconfigurations that the Bill proposes astounding. Local service reconfigurations should be driven by clinical advice and expert assessment of what services are needed to meet the health needs of a local community with patient safety at the heart, as well as considerations about what resources are available in terms of workforce, infrastructure and the proximity of alternative services.

The powers in the Bill would allow the Secretary of State to initiate service changes without any consultation. How can any Secretary of State feel sufficiently qualified to be making unilateral judgments about what constitutes “safe”? The existing, largely successful, processes, which have already been mentioned, take account of clinical advice and the views of local communities in the final decision have been effective. The noble Baroness gave the example of Kent and Medway stroke services, which were held up by the Secretary of State, not by the consultation. I strongly support these amendments and I hope that the Minister will think about removing the provisions from the Bill.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be brief. I put my name to Clause 40 stand part, and I think that is the best way to go. I shall add one or two things. First, as Secretary of State, I asked the now noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, to lead the independent reconfiguration panel, and I never had cause to regret doing so. Secondly, I can say something which other noble Lords cannot, because I am on this side, and I am hoping that we continue to have Conservative Secretaries of State for many years hence. They will be much better off if they do not do this. If the Government take Clause 40 out, they will equally not regret doing so.

Health and Care Bill

Lord Patel Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 24th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with the thrust of all these amendments. Most of the discussion has been about research—encouraging research in clinical trials within NHS trusts and foundation trusts—but I want to speak in support of Amendment 78, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, which looks at the issue of commissioning and the role of integrated care boards, because I believe that it is just as important to ensure that integrated care boards have in mind the need, through their commissioning policies, to encourage innovation. In our last debate on NICE, last week, we discussed the same issue, which is the fact that the reason NICE exists is that there are many innovative new medicines and treatments coming on stream, many of them developed in the UK, which the health service has found difficulty in adopting more generally.

The noble Baroness’s Amendment 78, about ICBs, is designed to encourage the ICB boards to consider that they have a responsibility in relation to innovations. It also proposes that integrated care boards must appoint a dedicated innovation officer to the board. I do not want to open up the issue raised by my noble friend Lady Thornton as we went into Committee, but we come back to the issue of the composition of ICB boards. She referred to guidance issued by NHS England a few days ago, which is not obtainable in the public domain. It is obtainable through something called “NHS Net”, but the Library has not been able to get hold of it. It is a bit much that advice on the contents of the Bill has been given out which we cannot even see. I hope that, as part of his response to my noble friend Lady Thornton, the Minister will look into that.

On the question, “Why add another postholder to the board of an ICB?”, I point to the Nuffield Trust report, which says that no organisation in the health service at the moment—or very few places—has someone with a direct responsibility for encouraging innovation. The Nuffield Trust thinks that having chief innovation officers with broad oversight could make what it calls a fundamental difference. I refer the noble Lord to research by the ABHI, which is essentially the trade association for medical devices. It showed that fewer than 20 NHS trusts across the UK have a member of their board with explicit responsibility for the uptake of innovative technologies.

Sometimes one must be wary of having a board appointment that may seem to be a token appointment. However, when it comes to commissioning, having someone around the table who is constantly reminding the board that through commissioning we must encourage and invest in innovation, would be very helpful. The slew of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, is valuable in getting that message across.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I am seriously concerned, for my sake, that I am invisible to the noble Baroness, Lady Harding—which I regret, but I will tease her about it.

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I fear that is my blindness and my problem, not his. I am very sorry.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I am only teasing.

I declare an interest as a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and as a professor emeritus at the University of Dundee, where I have spent all my life bar the first 18 years. I say this because we have lost something in the United Kingdom. A key strength of our academic clinical departments was a worldwide reputation for conducting health service-related research. We were second to none, and I mean that. We have lost that because we have changed the environment. People who work in clinical academic institutions—our so-called teaching hospitals—no longer have the environment to promote that. It was the duty of those of us who worked in clinical academic departments to grow the next generation of academics. It was important that we were all involved in conducting clinical research that produced innovation, better care for patients and a first-rate, first-class, internationally renowned next generation of academics. We do not have that any more, and anything we can do through this Bill to bring that back would be a major plus.

I will speak to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. Much has been said, excellently, and I will try not to repeat it, but a strengthened research mandate through this Bill could support patients, clinicians, NHS organisations and research. The patient benefits from increased research activity have already been mentioned, but there is a significant variability across the UK in the opportunity for patients to engage in research. A strengthened mandate could support ensuring that all patients can access clinical trials and their associated benefits. Therefore, wider changes are needed to increase the competitiveness of the UK as a destination for research, particularly through the proposed changes to clinical trials legislation, and through increases in Department of Health and Social Care and NIHR funding.

This could include measures to support faster approval timelines and closer multiagency collaborations. Clinical research has clear benefits to patients, as has already been mentioned. NHS trusts with higher levels of research have a higher rating from the CQC and better outcomes, as have already been said. During Covid, the UK has demonstrated its potential with the success of Covid-19 research, with 68 commercial Covid trials launched in the UK in 2020—the third-highest globally, beating the United States and the rest of Europe.

How did we manage to do that? It is because, during the emergency, we set up methodologies that allow patients to be involved in trials more quickly by creating a voluntary registry, where patients themselves volunteer to take part in research. I also note the clinical recovery trials that we set up—some noble Lords might have seen the article in the Times, with Sir Martin Landray suggesting that we follow that process in the future to try to find treatments for other common diseases. If we do that, we will lead globally. The NHS has the capacity to do that, but it now requires the will and the leadership from the centre to drive that. The clinical academics will be up to it—they just want to be given a chance. Let us do that, because we have demonstrated that we can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

My Lords, in theory these amendments should not be needed, but in practice they clearly are, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, has just so forensically set out. It is a statement of the blindingly obvious, particularly coming out of the pandemic, to say that we need better workforce planning at a time when staff are exhausted from having dealt with Covid for several years and the NHS is confronting the need to deal with the backlog of care.

But, frankly, it would be a statement of the blindingly obvious at any time, because the lead times for decisions on training for health professionals are such that they go beyond any individual term of Parliament or government manifesto. Universities need a strong signal as to what future demand will look like. The interconnectedness between health and social care means that we are actually thinking about a workforce of 3 million plus, and the materiality of getting it wrong over a five or 10-year period is bigger in this sector of the workforce than any other part of the economy. As we heard earlier—I think from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley—estimates from the Health Foundation, for example, suggest that on the current trajectory the gap could be more than a third of a million staff in the health service by 2030-31; and in respect of the social care workforce, Skills for Care talks about perhaps 490,000 additional posts being required over the period to 2035. Those figures may be right or they may be wrong, but there is not a forensic forum in which those debates are scrutinised and choices made. This is not just about more; this is about different.

It is not all doom and gloom. Over the last two years, during the most intense challenge the health service has faced since its creation, nearly 160,000 people have signed up to join the health and care staff and professions. We have seen applications for undergraduate nursing up by more than a quarter and a huge increase in applications for and interest in studying medicine, yet we have an acceptance rate of only about 52% for undergraduate nursing, according to figures from UCAS, and we are turning away bright and brilliant young people with fantastic A-level grades who would like to study medicine. That is a paradox which stems from the fact that, unlike the day-to-day running costs of the health service, those items which have the longest planning horizon—workforce and capital investment—are the areas with the shortest financial horizon.

Of course, it may well be argued by the Government that we are about to turn a corner and that although there has been a degree of short-termism hitherto, things are about to improve. But I am afraid that I think we are entitled to treat that proposition with a degree of scepticism, because although what has been said up until now may be blindingly obvious, in fact what we have been confronted with is wilful blindness. Health Education England, which should be looking at 10 years, does not yet have its running budget for 10 weeks’ time. If we look back over the history of recent years, we can see a series of missed opportunities. The Minister may assure us that we will be presented with this 15-year further vision from Health Education England this coming summer, which will, of course, be welcome. But if we remind ourselves of the history since 2014 or 2015, as I say, we can perhaps be a tad sceptical. Obviously, I draw attention to my prior NHS interest, and everything I am about to say only draws on the public record, just to clarify that point.

It was back in 2014 that the NHS Five Year Forward View talked about the service changes that were required, but it was not permitted to talk about future capital investment, social care or workforce training, since they were being kept separate. So, in summer 2016, the Department of Health and Social Care was going to produce this detailed quantified workforce plan instead. Twenty-sixteen came and went and instead, in December 2017—three years after the Five Year Forward View—Health Education England launched a consultation document which said: “Your responses will be used to inform the full strategy to be published in July 2018 to coincide with the NHS’s 70th birthday.”

Twenty-eighteen came and went, and answers saw we none. Then in June 2019, we got another, in this case interim people plan, with lots of excellent content but unfortunately no actual numbers and no new pound notes. Despite the fact that it promised:

“We will aim to publish a full, costed five-year Plan later this year”


quantifying

“the full range of additional staff needed”.

But again, “later this year” came and went, and no such documents saw the light of day, until in July 2020 we had a one-year people plan which, at that point, was covering just the next eight months. Fear not, though, because it said:

“Further action for 2021/22 and beyond is expected to be set out later in the year”—


in 2020—

“once funding arrangements have been confirmed by the Government.”

That did not happen.

Instead, in July 2021, last summer, the Department of Health and Social Care again commissioned Health Education England to start from scratch. Last November, HEE published a short PowerPoint—commissioned from a firm of accountants—with the discouraging disclaimer on the first page that:

“We do not warrant or represent that the report is appropriate for your purposes”


and “no warranty is made as to the accuracy of any data”. As it happens, that does not really matter because there were no real data in the document anyway, which came to startling conclusions such as “workforce demand will be affected by demography and disease”.

I think we are entitled to say that this litany tells us that what, to everybody else, is blindingly obvious has instead been confronted with wilful blindness. What explains this? Is it a lack of interest on the part of the committed people to getting this right? No, it is not—some excellent work has been done. Your Lordships may take a clue from a statement that Jeremy Hunt, the former Secretary of State and now Chair of the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, made last Tuesday, when he said that “the Health and Social Care Committee has recommended on numerous occasions that we should have independently verified forecasts of the number of doctors, nurses and other staff that we should be training for the future. But that has been blocked consistently by the Treasury”.

Without in any way commenting on or editorialising that, the Minister may want to take the opportunity to confirm whether that is indeed the case. But just on the off chance that he does not refute the statement Jeremy Hunt has made, then that, I think, tells us that unfortunately, these amendments are necessary and will strengthen the hand of Health and Social Care Ministers in the future. I cannot help thinking that, in their heart of hearts, past Health Ministers know that they would have benefited enormously, were these amendments on the statute book. I am afraid that, if the Government choose not to support these amendments—as I hope will not be the case—that will be proof positive that they are very necessary. Therefore, I hope they will recognise that ignorance is not bliss and if we do find ourselves in that situation, this House will take the opportunity at Report to give the Commons another go.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, listening to my noble friend Lord Stevens of Birmingham, I am beginning to feel the pain of his frustration at being chief executive of the NHS and not being listened to in order to fix such an important issue as workforce planning. Also, there is a bit of déjà vu that he may remember, along with some of my colleagues who were took part in the Lords committee inquiry into the long-term sustainability of the NHS and adult social care.

Let me argue the same issues that he just presented. The report on the long-term sustainability of the NHS and adult social care, published in April 2017, looked at data on demographic and disease burden projections of the population over the next 15 to 20 years. It identified a lack of long-term workforce planning as a key threat to the long-term sustainability of the NHS. The Committee heard from the then Secretary of State, the right honourable Jeremy Hunt, who had this to say:

“workforce planning is an area where we have failed… Brexit will be a catalyst to get this right… That is an area where we need to be much more strategic”.

That was nearly five years ago and yet, there is no strategic healthcare workforce plan from the Department of Health and Social Care, as we just heard.

The solution is not going to come from an outside body, no matter how influential. It has to come from the centre, from the leadership of the NHS and social care, and not one in the isolation from the other. What we have heard from the centre and NHS organisations is many publications identifying the problem, but not the solution with a long-term plan. We are told that this may be coming in April 2022—or perhaps later.

On the other hand, there are several detailed authoritative documents on the NHS workforce from think tanks, NHS providers, the BMA, the nursing councils and many others, who have been grappling with this issue and trying to find a solution for a long time and advising the Government on how to do this. There is no lack of authoritative reports based on data related to long-term projections of population, its demography, health needs and the workforce needed to deliver them. For example, an extensive, well-researched report by Dr Latifa Patel, a respiratory paediatrician, and Dr Wrigley, a GP of medical staff in England, projected to 2045—based on population and disease data—the number of doctors needed in each speciality and possible models of plans to deliver on this by 2032. A document extending to 60 pages is not only highly informative and well-researched but identifies a way forward.

Since the Health and Social Care Act 2012, there has been inadequate workforce planning, fuelled by inadequate regional and national workforce data and a lack of accountability for it at government level. We are not training enough doctors, despite record numbers of people applying. The latest figures, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, mentioned, show a 21% increase on previous years in applications to medical schools of highly talented young people. This means the NHS is ill-equipped to tackle the backlog of care, is not prepared for future public health crises and cannot meet patient needs, either now or in the future.

If we compare England with EU nations within the OECD, which have an average of 3.7 doctors per 1,000 people, the medical workforce in England is currently short of around 49,000 full-time equivalent doctors. Without significant intervention regarding the current rate of growth, the estimate is that the future medical workforce shortage will be between 26,889 and 83,779 full-time doctors by 2043. Such precise numbers show how well-researched this document is. Each full-time doctor in NHS England is doing an average of 1.3 full-time equivalent roles. I have three of them in the NHS and I can see what they do—although I tell them they are lazy compared to me.

Sugar

Lord Patel Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

One of the issues that we need to be aware of as we look at how to tackle sugar levels is that, although we have seen a reduction in sugar in drinks and in many food products over the years, a concern that is often raised is whether the sweeteners have unintended consequences that also cause health issues. We have to consider all the evidence when we look at the measures that we introduce.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister comment on the proposed relationship between high-carbohydrate consumption—which is what sugar is—and deprivation?

Health and Care Bill

Lord Patel Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 3 & Committee stage
Tuesday 18th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, while we all treasure the hospice movement and revere Cicely Saunders and her disciples, the grim fact is that there are all too many parts of the country where hospices are lacking and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, explained, palliative care is limited and inadequate, or perhaps even non-existent. Of course, palliative care, available in every setting, must become a core responsibility of the NHS. We should not displace the hospices and the charitable ethos, but where hospices do not exist—mainly in poorer communities where fund-raising capacity is small—default provision should be made by the NHS. These amendments would secure universal availability of high-quality palliative care.

High-quality palliative care is, of course, not just a matter of technical skills in pain relief and so on. Dr Iona Heath, a past chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, has written:

“The whole discipline of medicine has colluded in the wider … project of seeking technical solutions to the existential problems posed by distress, suffering and the finitude of life and the inevitability of ageing, loss and death. Sickness and death have gradually come to be regarded as failures of medicine, even by doctors themselves, rather than inevitable constituents of what it is to be human.”


At a round table on the arts and palliative care, dying and bereavement convened by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing and chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, Dr Viv Lucas—medical director of the Garden House Hospice, Letchworth—said that the role of doctors in this context is not to cure disease but to heal their patients. She said that this implies

“addressing the subjective experience of human suffering and facilitating a process of inner change—not about the technological doing to of the disease-orientated model but of being with, bearing witness.”

The hospice movement acknowledges creative work to be a vital human activity. Through the arts, we can transcend suffering, come to terms with our own mortality and enable our own healing. Artist Virginia Hearth has said:

“The arts offer us a way of making sense of the world and help us to define who we are and who we have been.”


There is an abundance of evidence cited in the World Health Organization scoping review of the benefits of the arts in end-of-life care, through opportunities for communication and emotional expression, reframing of the illness experience, and enhanced human connection.

Equally, the arts can help families watching their loved ones approach death and afterwards. At another APPG round table, the director of Grampian Hospitals Art Trust, Sally Thomson, read out a letter from a woman whose husband had been diagnosed with terminal cancer:

“To be given a terminal prognosis is devastating for both the patient and family. To take away your future, the opportunity to grow old and grey with your spouse and to watch your children grow and thrive. You lose your independence and your sense of self, your purpose and role in life. Yet in the midst of this suffering lies the Artroom. An oasis of positivity and fulfilment providing a different purpose. One of creativity and self-expression. It is a place where the self is rediscovered and allowed to flourish … It’s medicine for the soul and every bit as vital as drugs and chemotherapy. A life-fulfilling experience that has changed both our lives for the better.”


As Dr Rachel Clarke, a palliative care doctor, writes in her beautiful book, Dear Life:

“What I witness, over and over, in the hospice … is that there is nothing more powerful than another human presence … reaching out with love and tenderness towards one of our own.”

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 47, to which I have attached my name. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for her brilliant introduction to these amendments, and the other three speakers who spoke so passionately. We have debated this issue several times, and the time has now come that we should be angry about it. The time has come that we should have palliative care and hospice care being made a part of the NHS as a commitment on the face of the Bill.

I shall read the words of a government Minister in Our Commitment to You for End of Life Care—The Government Response to the Review of Choice in End of Life Care. The Minister, Ben Gummer, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of Health, said this:

“A universal provision of good care will make possible what we should expect from our health and care system - a universal expectation of a good death.”


He went on to say:

“Cicely Saunders was articulating an ancient truth when she described her mission: that ‘we should see the last stages of life not as a defeat but as life’s fulfilment’. A good death - peaceful, dignified, reflective, compassionate, in the loving embrace of those closest to the dying person - is already a happy end for hundreds of thousands of people across our nation.”


The next line is important:

“In making this commitment, we make that promise universal, so that every dying person in England can live in anticipation of a good death.”


I ask the Minister: when that was written in 2016, was it an empty promise or is it likely to become a reality now?

We do not sufficiently value care for those for whom there is no cure. We do not value the short lives of children and young people who die prematurely and who will never be parents, let alone grandparents. Some Members here may have attended the annual reception held downstairs for parliamentarians by Together for Short Lives and other charities. They are attended by children and young people from the ages of three to 16, some using crutches, some using wheelchairs, some with tubes in their noses to supply oxygen, some undergoing IV treatment and some with IV pumps to relieve the pain. It brings tears to your eyes when you see them, but they all come with smiles on their faces, grateful for the care that they get—professional and dedicated care from professionals and volunteers.

So why do we rely for three-quarters of the funding for palliative and hospice care on the charity sector? Why is it that the Government fund only one-third of the care? Why, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, do these charities have to sell cakes at village fêtes and second-hand books, toys and clothes for the money that they so fervently raise? Why can we not find the money?

Sue Ryder commissioned research into the total costs required to fund palliative and hospice care for every patient that needs it. They come to about £987 million a year. I should imagine that the transaction costs of the reforms that we are debating in the Health and Care Bill will probably cost several billion pounds. So it is possible for us to reorganise the health service at a cost of billions of pounds, but we cannot fund end-of-life care for those who are dying—children, young people and older people. We should be ashamed of that.

[The Lord Bishop of Carlisle]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I am pleased to give my wholehearted support to Amendment 47 and to Amendment 52, to which I have added my name, which compellingly requires the commissioning of specialist palliative care services in every part of England. Throughout my life and work I have often had the privilege of being present with families and communities, supporting people of all ages through the final chapter of their life, so I have seen at first hand the enormous difference that high-quality palliative care can make to their experience of dying, death and bereavement.

However, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Masham, pointed out, 90% of people might need such care, but as things stand at present only about half of them will receive it. What is more, it is all too often those in our most deprived communities who are dying without the help and dignity they deserve.