NHS: Long-term Sustainability
Lord Patel Excerpts(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Patel
That this House takes note of the long-term sustainability of the NHS to be able to deliver comprehensive, timely and affordable health and social care for all, including options for systems of care and funding.
Lord Patel (CB)
I see noble Lords leaving. The debate will not be that bad. It has certainly emptied the House.
I am grateful to the noble Lords who are taking part in the debate. I look forward to their speeches, particularly the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath; I wish her well. Several noble Lords—the noble Lords, Lord Stevens of Birmingham and Lord Darzi, the noble Baronesses, Lady Harding and Lady Watkins, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup—would have joined us, but other commitments do not allow them to do so.
I declare my interests. I am a fellow of several medical royal colleges and faculties. Importantly, I worked for 39 years in the NHS in its glory days. My comments will be based on comparing the current state of our healthcare system with 26 other systems that I have looked at. They all have some problems but, compared with more developed systems of universal care in Europe and the Far East, ours is severely strained.
On 26 April 2018, 6 years ago, we debated this exact Motion. There were 50 speakers and the debate lasted nearly seven hours, interrupted by a Statement on artificial intelligence, which mentioned how AI will transform healthcare. Today’s debate may well mirror that debate in 2018. What has happened since then? We have daily media reports of the demise of the NHS as we know it, and lots of suggestions for how to improve things. Public satisfaction with the NHS is at its lowest point; waiting lists are at their highest level; waits at A&E are long and harming patents; and there are huge inequalities in health and poor outcomes—I could go on.
After several reorganisations and reforms, including a seismic one in 2012, the NHS has not found the equilibrium that it needs. But the NHS is still capable of delivering superb primary, community and hospital care. Thousands of hard-working, resourceful and committed front-line professionals are prepared to go the extra mile, despite feeling undervalued. They need to be better supported and valued before they too give up. It is access to care that has become a major problem.
The current state of NHS is not because of some inevitable built-in decay; it is a system failure. It is the result of decades of political short-termism, a lack of long-term planning and an underinvestment in capital infrastructure and technology. The system lacks capacity, with fewer beds and equipment such as CT, MRI and PET scanners, and with a huge workforce shortage compared with other countries. We now have a workforce plan stretching to 2035, with no longer-term funding. We need it to work. I congratulate the Minister for getting 50,000 nurses in place, as the Government hoped to.
A lack of planning means that disease is diagnosed at a later stage, leading to poor outcomes. Modelling suggests that, by 2040, one in five people will be living with a major illness, which is upwards of 9 million people. Nearly 3 million people of working age will not be in work due to ill health. Not investing in health means greater pressure on the budgets of other departments. Anxiety, depression and chronic pain will be the main causes of ill health, which has implications for primary and community care.
Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to reduce the growth in people living with major illness in the short to medium term. Diseases that affect millions, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, some cancers and chronic lung disease, are all amenable to either prevention or early detection. The focus needs to change to prevention and health, not just healthcare. We need to move from: “I am ill; I need to get better” to “I don’t want to be unwell”. Countries that have recognised this are seeing the benefits of higher life expectancy, people living more years in good health and being more economically productive. The system needs to change to make primary and community care a central part of our care system.
The current funding of primary care is at 8.4% of the total NHS budget of £192 billion, which is the lowest in eight years, and it employs only 154,000 of the total 1.3 million workforce. This proportion will need a significant increase to at least 20% or more if we are to see improved access to primary care. The traditional system of a single portal of access to healthcare also needs to change. To enable patients to have greater choice of access, community care will need to be staffed by a multidisciplinary team of professionals, including general practitioners.
An explosion in data, generated by patients and the health system, will drive healthcare through screening services’ early detection of markers of disease, such as blood pressure monitoring and hypercholesterolemia, to mention but two. Population and risk-based genomic screening, liquid biopsies, individual health data monitoring and so on will lead to early risk identification and detection of disease. Healthcare will be digitally driven, technologically enabled, personalised and patient-centred. Patients will be involved in planning and managing their own health. The best health systems in the world have strong community care, with a focus on helping people stay well.
From birth to death, health, healthcare and long-term care in old age is a continuum. If any part of it is not functioning, it affects the rest. The lack of a properly funded and organised social care system is having a huge effect on the NHS. We have had 28 years of kicking the can down the road. After seven policy papers, six consultations and four independent reviews, we have a social care system that is means-tested, needs-assessed and underfunded.
There is a lack of a workforce plan for a service that needs 1.5 million staff, with 2 million people still needing care—one-third of whom get no support. With a rise of 20% in working-age adults needing social care, this needs urgent attention. Capacity is getting worse, and public satisfaction with social care is as low as 13%.
Various options have been considered, including free personal care, the Dilnot cap and universal care. The best performing comprehensive system of social care is provided in countries with a long-term care insurance, or which is tax funded, based on the principle of social solidarity. People above a certain salary range pay throughout their lives. Without a solution to the funding of social care, the NHS cannot survive.
I now turn to the key issue of funding the NHS. Funding of the NHS has always been a rollercoaster, despite its link to the performance of the NHS. The planned budget for 2024-25 is £192 billion, an increase in real terms of 0.6% from the 2023-24 settlement but a reduction from 2022-23. According to NHS England, it will provide a spending increase of 0.25%. Over the parliamentary term 2019-20 to 2024-25 the increase has been 3% per year, but from 2010 to 2019 it was 1.4% on average.
Following the famous “expensive breakfast” in 2000—when Prime Minister Tony Blair announced on breakfast television an uncosted commitment that he would bring NHS spending up to the EU average—and the Wanless report, there was a multiyear increase in funding leading to better NHS performance. Waiting lists came down dramatically and health inequalities began to improve.
If the EU average had been maintained in the years that followed, the budget would now be £40 billion higher per year. Lack of capital funding—an average of £2.5 billion per year from 2010 to 2019—has led to poor infrastructure and a lack of equipment; it has not increased. Rising costs have led to calls for funding reform. Social insurance, some element of self-pay and hypothecation have all been suggested. Each has its own problem. Analysis suggests that a single-payer system is most effective in costs and complexity. The public seem to prefer a tax-funded system. What is important is that there is properly costed long-term funding that tracks GDP growth. Also important to note is that while measures of prevention and healthy living may make people live longer in good health, they will not cut costs. If cutting costs is a priority, a different model of care will be needed—but people may not live longer.
In conclusion, a sustainable future for both NHS and social care is possible, and with it a healthier population that leads to increased life expectancy and decreased health inequalities. It needs a long-term funding commitment, including in capital funding, and strong primary and community care with a focus on prevention and health. It needs to be digitally driven, connected and tech enabled, and to have a clear plan with timelines for its introduction. An overcentralised, bureaucratic system will not address the fundamentals of effective healthcare. This may well be the last opportunity for the NHS as we know it and as we want. If not, the public may well seek an alternative that could lead only to a two-tier system of care.
My question, in this election year, is to the Minister and the noble Baroness on the Opposition Front Bench: what plans does each party have to make the NHS sustainable in the long term? What support will the Liberal Democrat Front Bench give to make amends for the part it played in the reforms of the coalition years? I beg to move.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, the new rules do not allow me to speak at length, so I am constrained. I truly am constrained, because I would have loved to dissect some of the speeches made by some of my friends. I wish that the hospital, wherever it was, had treated the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, better, because her speech might have been different. When I put in a bid for this debate, I did not imagine that I would get the talent pool we got today, or the brilliant speeches that have been made. Top of the list, of course, is the maiden speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath; we look forward to hearing her over and over again.
I had intended that this would not dissolve into a political debate, and I am glad that it did not. I am glad that my challenge to all three Benches paid off. By the way, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Allan, that it was this House that won the vote to put mental health at equal esteem; it was not the other House, although the Minister, Norman Lamb, did help. It was an amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, that won, although I had to call it because the noble Baroness was not here at the time.
I thank all noble Lords again; I am grateful that they all joined in this debate. It contained lots of ideas, but the key thing that came out was the need to make community and primary care stronger. The second thing was the solution to social care: it is funding, whichever way we go. The other thing was data. By the way, as the noble Lord, Lord Allan, was speaking, I asked ChatGPT: “How can data help healthcare?” It produced immediately a 700-word, six-point response; I might send it to the noble Lord.
Immunisation: RSV
Lord Patel Excerpts(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Markham (Con)
It will not surprise the noble Lord to learn that I totally agree. It is absolutely on the road map. I cannot promise it is there today; it is more there for adults. The child digital red book is another objective we are working on, but that is taking slightly longer. But in terms of direction of travel—yes, absolutely.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, on pursuing this even before we had vaccines available. Now we have succeeded in getting the vaccine, but why has 75 years been chosen for adult immunisation, when we know that the incidence and prevalence of RSV infections is much more common for over-65s?
Lord Markham (Con)
I too add my thanks; the noble Baroness is very good at holding our feet to the fire, and it is very important and appreciated. Regarding the age group, we are being guided by the scientific advice on what is most cost-effective.
Pandemic Preparedness
Lord Patel Excerpts(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Markham (Con)
Absolutely. To respond to both this question and the earlier question from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the other things I would like to see the inquiry look at are the lockdown and comparisons with countries such as Sweden, what lessons can be learned across the whole health system, the impact on the mental health of our children and a lot of the other areas that my noble friend mentioned.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, the WHO has identified Nipah virus as a priority candidate for the next pandemic. It belongs to the same group of viruses as the measles virus. Fortunately, Oxford University has developed a vaccine that went into human trial last week. The lesson therefore is that we should identify the organisms that are likely to cause pandemics and be prepared ahead of time with the vaccines; several other candidates have also been identified. For that to happen, we require a global conglomerate to focus on development of vaccines. Do the Government have any plans to establish one?
Lord Markham (Con)
We definitely look to work closely with our colleagues, and I have spoken to my Health Minister counterparts on this. One of the lessons from the pandemic was that you also need to have your own capability. The work we have done on the100-day mission, and the strategic relationship we have entered into with Moderna—which can develop vaccines in as little as four to six weeks to answer some of those unknowns—is very powerful.
Children’s Cancer Services
Lord Patel Excerpts(8 months ago)
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Lord Markham (Con)
Ministers are on a fact-finding mission. I understand the points the noble Earl makes; the NHS made the point that it wants cancer treatment to be co-located alongside an intensive care unit. Following Professor Sir Mike Richards’ review, it believes that it is best to have those services co-located, which is why it has chosen the Evelina. There are pros and cons to every decision, and that is why Ministers are doing further fact-finding.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, this decision is daft on many counts, some of which have already been expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield. I declare an interest in that I am an occasional contributor to the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. As has already been mentioned, the Royal Marsden is a world-renowned centre for cancer research, including in children.
Going back to the decision, even if the Royal Marsden was closed down and all the children’s cancer services were shifted to the Evelina, it does not and will not have all the facilities to deliver medical oncology services to children. Compromised children with cancers will then have to be transferred out of the Evelina to other places where radiotherapy is available. Why shut down a centre which last year transferred to intensive care only three children out of 700—all of whom survived —and instead use another centre which does not have major radiotherapy facilities?
Lord Markham (Con)
The noble Lord makes some very good points. Following the NHS review and the evidence put forward, specific cancer treatments will take place at University College Hospital London, which has two particular benefits for patients: radiotherapy and proton beam technology. Ministers want to understand and make the points the noble Lord has made, and to see whether this is a decision we are comfortable with. As I said earlier, since January 2024 we have had the power to call in a decision in exceptional circumstances.
Prioritising Early Childhood: Academy of Medical Sciences Report
Lord Patel Excerpts(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Markham (Con)
I totally agree. Funnily enough, I was talking to Minister Leadsom about this subject just this morning. It is complex, because all parents need proxy access so that they can get those digital records for their children automatically. It is something we are working towards. The Pharmacy First initiative, whereby you can write data from a pharmacist immediately into GP records, will help because it will give a road map to do that for children and babies from hospital. It is something we are working on, and I will give details of the timeline in writing.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest. I am a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, which produced this seminal report addressing issues related to child health. I will pick up two points that the Minister might comment on. Although he is implementing what we already know from research works in improving children’s health, we have no strategy for the implementation of good practice. My second point is about research into the early years. Diseases that people may develop later in life can occur as a result of epigenetic influences during the early years that alter the genome, yet research into childhood accounts for 5% of total government research funding.
Lord Markham (Con)
I totally agree about the importance of research and data. We have spent about £580 million on research in the children and young persons’ space since 2020. As per the earlier question, data is vital to this. I saw a fascinating example just a couple of weeks ago in the Cambridge Research Centre concerning young children. It is using data to construct what it calls “virtual children”, to look at rare diseases, how they progress and different treatments that can be tried. It is truly revolutionary and something I totally support.
Mental Health Patients: Discharge
Lord Patel Excerpts(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Markham (Con)
Yes, in a word. We must try to make sure that each integrated care board has a mental health lead in place and that the services are rolled out. Much of the strength of the ICBs is that they can look after the needs of their area in ways that they know best. At the same time, where there is good practice, we must make sure that it is rolled out as well.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, suicide is the second highest cause of maternal deaths in England. All such deaths are preventable, because mothers at risk can easily be recognised antenatally, and certainly postnatally. What actions will the Government take to prevent these deaths?
Lord Markham (Con)
Like many of us, I am sure, I have had very good personal experience of the midwifery service at community level. I know that there have been some challenges post Covid, but midwives are on the front line in understanding and recognising some issues. I should have mentioned earlier that there will be a round table with the Minister on mental health issues, following the one a few months ago, and this is one of the areas we should bring up with her.
NHS: Neurology Care
Lord Patel Excerpts(8 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Lord Markham (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness. Yes, the point about epilepsy nurses was made very clear to me just half an hour ago, and I quizzed both the national clinical director of neurology and Professor Stephen Powis on that subject this morning. I was assured that the next stage of the long-term workforce plan goes into that level of detail. I have made a commitment to the House to share some of that data, so we can make sure that it really is covered properly.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, as human beings we are one biological system. A disease in one system often impacts another: for instance, chronic cardiac failure often results in cognitive dysfunction and people with neurological conditions often have associated cancers. While this Question is about funding for neurological diseases—and in the last two weeks, we have had Questions about funding for cardiovascular disease, cancers and others—what the whole thing shows is that we have one system failure in the health service. The only way that might be addressed is to get some out-of-the-box thinking. Does the Minister agree?
Lord Markham (Con)
I hope the noble Lord knows me well enough to know that I am always up for some out-of-the-box thinking. We are putting a lot of resources into this space. When we talk about dementia, which is captured in this, the commitment I gave last week was to bring in the expert panel, so that we can start to really understand this because early diagnosis is absolutely key. There is some out-of-the-box thinking there. Again, just now I was caught by the spinal muscular atrophy people; they were saying that if we could add that to the baby pinprick test, for instance, we could make sure that babies never suffer those symptoms later in their life, in many cases. I am absolutely up for that out-of-the-box thinking.
Anaesthesia Associates and Physician Associates Order 2024
Lord Patel Excerpts(8 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I begin with a slight disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Harris. I take his point about how dental professionals, not just dentists, are regulated by the GDC, but I agree with the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the impression it would give if other professions apart from doctors were regulated by the General Medical Council. Hitherto, the GMC has regulated only doctors, so it would have to be clear in the register how these people were differentiated. I am afraid that the solution of having a prefix on a register would not mean anything to patients.
In the past, if you walked around a hospital, it was easy to know who was a doctor, as they mostly wore white coats; who were the nurses, because they wore different uniforms, including the matron’s uniform, which was a different colour; and who was a trainee nurse, because they wore a pink uniform, which is why junior doctors referred to them as “pinkies”. Physiotherapists wore yet another colour of uniform. However, nowadays everyone wears suits or jackets or jerseys, so you cannot distinguish from that which profession is looking after you.
I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Winston, made, that for all of us who have done surgery, a qualified, competent anaesthetist is our friend. But sometimes—as he and I have no doubt done—we operate on pretty vulnerable patients for whom the surgery is necessary but they are not a safe bet for anaesthesia, unless by an extremely competent anaesthetist. But I interpret the anaesthesia associate as someone who does not induce anaesthesia but only maintains anaesthetic under strict supervision by a qualified anaesthetist. And that is quite distinct from what a physician associate might do, because they might be involved in different ways in assisting the physician. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, is important because it is an example that shows up the importance of the scope of the practice of physician associates and anaesthesia associates.
It does not help—and this debate is an example of why so much concern has been expressed—when the NHS health careers website says, in relation to physician associates, that they will be trained in
“taking medical histories … performing physical examinations … diagnosing illnesses … seeing patients with long-term chronic conditions … performing diagnostic and therapeutic procedures … analysing test results … developing management plans”—
which I presume means patient management plans. If you see that, you can see why there are concerns and confusion over what their responsibilities will be and the limitation of the scope of their practice.
I absolutely appreciate the need for physician associates —I keep calling them assistants—and anaesthesia associates and the need for regulation, but I think this crosses the Rubicon since it is the General Medical Council that will regulate this. It is important that what it defines as the scope of the practice is understandable to patients and professionals clearly.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, commented that he took the legislation through this House in 1999, and that Act will subsequently be the vehicle for SIs to be used for future regulation. I am sorry that some of us were not here at the time because some of us might have opposed it. An Act from nearly 25 years ago cannot be the one that continues to be used. If we are going to have further reforms of the regulation of doctors and nurses—where we are talking about 1.5 million health professionals, not 3,000 physician associates or anaesthesia associates—I hope we are not going to have an SI to do that, because there are lots of issues of regulation.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, to be fair, I said that that Act had been subsequently amended by the Health and Care Act 2022. If you do not have flexibility through regulation, you will never get anything done in relation to modernising health regulation. Governments simply do not find time in primary legislation to update regulation.
Lord Patel (CB)
I hope they do find time, because that allows for better scrutiny and better ability to amend, which we always claim to be our key role—to scrutinise and amend. It is a major piece of legislation to go through using SIs, and it is inappropriate to do so. Maybe we must consider how else we could do it in a way that maintains flexibility.
Moving on from that, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, already mentioned, if this legislation is going to be the template for future legislation to regulate all health professionals, some issues will need to be discussed. This order does not require that health is considered as a category in the regulation of physician and anaesthesia associates. The statistics show that, when the GMC or, I presume, any other regulator investigates, it is a very stressful situation for the person involved. Some statistics suggest that one in three considers suicide; they are depressed by it. If the category of health is removed as a consideration when a person is investigated, as this order does, it is a backwards step. I need to ask the Minister why health has been removed as a consideration. If this is the template, I presume that this will also apply to other regulations in the future.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, just said many very important things, with which I agree, far better than I would. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett, Lady Brinton and Lady Finlay, because this debate has revealed the importance of this order: it is not a minor regulatory matter that can be put through by an SI, in a back room. That it has created so much debate outside the Chamber indicates why it is important that we discuss this and that it is not nodded through behind the public’s back. I am glad of that.
I have been embroiled in discussions about this for some time. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, made a good point when he said that the discussion has become quite toxic. I thought it was perfectly reasonable to be worried about PAs and AAs; I did not anticipate this kind of savage attack on them. There has been a real scapegoating of these individuals, which is not how we should resolve this issue. We should also remember that doctors can be guilty of clinical negligence. We do not want to wander around pointing the finger at who is more negligent.
However, if there are preventable never events as a consequence of people not being fully equipped for the roles that they are asked to do—by the way, they are being asked, very often told, what to do when they are not really up to it, through no fault of their own—it is a matter for public concern. That is the way that accountability works and why we need to be very clear and have no muddle over what somebody is supposed to be doing, what they are not supposed to be doing, and what they can and cannot do.
There were a couple of things that confused me in the arguments made in the briefings we received. I lost the will to live in the rows going on about the differences between physician associates and physician assistants, as though “associate” or “assistant” was the key difference. I think the difficulty is when people think that any of them are physicians, because that means that they think they are doctors. That is the confusing bit and it shows that people can get lost in the midst of this.
It is also worth bearing in mind some context when it comes to the public. Most patients would prefer to see anyone at a doctor’s practice than wait for two weeks in pain. That makes the public vulnerable to having a lesser service. I understand that. I also thought that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, was absolutely right about a big team: when you are in hospital, you are surrounded by people wearing a million badges, different colours and lanyards. They all introduce themselves to you in great detail, but you do not care because you are ill. You want to lie back and trust them, and assume that a division of labour is going on.
Sometimes, when I was reading the briefings, it felt as though there might be a bit of vested interest about who was regulating who and what numbers were on the badges. This seemed to miss the point of the real concerns, which are whether there is sufficient clarity about the scope of PAs or AAs, or whatever we call them; that there is not too much mission creep; and that we have a clearly defined set of protocols and specific tasks allocated. I think it important that PAs in GP surgeries have a different set of protocols and scope than in hospitals—they are not the same, even though in both instances they are called PAs.
Lord Markham (Con)
It is a protected title. The point I was trying to make about the general overhaul and understanding of the titles, however, is that there will be the scope to do this, as doctors and consultants are not protected titles today. I think we need to develop clarity on that, which is why the further reforms and SI changes will set out to protect other titles as well.
Lord Patel (CB)
Sorry about prolonging the debate, but is that the only protected title of all healthcare professionals?
Lord Markham (Con)
My understanding is that currently none of the titles is protected. These are the first set of titles that will be protected as a part of the secondary legislation that we are passing. The idea is to understand the hierarchy of titles and start to introduce the protections. I am happy to follow up in writing in more depth on all of this. I thank the noble Lord for his intervention.
Hopefully, this order will provide a standardised framework of governance and assurance for clinical practice and professional conduct for AAs and PAs. It will enhance patient safety and enable AAs and PAs to make a greater contribution to patient care. I beg to move.
NHS: Dementia Commission Report
Lord Patel Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Lord Markham (Con)
Yes, that is a very good point. For me, as I have looked into this, the reason for assembling the panel that we can all interrogate is that we have the value of different noble Lords in this House who can add those points to it. What the noble Lord said sounds sensible. The honest answer is that I do not know whether there is such a person today, but let us use this as an opportunity to find out, because I think there should be.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, there are several important points in development that should allow us to better manage people with dementia. The first is early diagnosis, as has been mentioned, but we need greater input into research in developing biomarkers that detect early development of the disease. Having done so, we then need drugs that will be effective in early phases of the disease—so-called disease-modifying treatments. Some of those have recently been given accelerated approval in the United States and Japan, but they are very expensive drugs. As we discussed last week, one of the drugs for small-cell lung cancer failed at the final endpoint, so we have to be guarded. For instance, the drug lecanemab, which has been approved, would use up half the pharmaceutical costs of all the 27 countries of Europe. These two things are important, and I hope that the forum that is developing will address those issues of research.
Lord Markham (Con)
As ever, my colleague the noble Lord is correct. The blood biomarkers are central to this. We have set up the NIHR biomarker challenge to try to understand those, and my understanding is that a Swedish blood test is quite promising. NICE is bound to approve the two early-stage drugs that the noble Lord mentioned over the summer, in July and September, but then we need to look at scale-up issues. Often, we are talking about having to deliver them through drips, which means a whole workforce scale-up. So there are a lot of issues around this that the noble Lord rightly brings up, and I hope the panel can discuss them further.
Premature Deaths: Heart and Circulatory Conditions
Lord Patel Excerpts(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Markham (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness and draw attention to my register of interests: I am a shareholder in a small health company that does high-end heart tests for the private sector.
It is fitting that February is Heart Month. The concern that the noble Baroness raises is exactly the one that noble Lords will have heard me speak about. This is precisely the concern that Chris Whitty, our Chief Medical Officer, was worried about during Covid, with missed appointments because people stopped going to see their doctor meaning that we missed things such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol. To tackle the problem urgently, as the noble Baroness suggests, we have put 7,500 blood pressure checkers in pharmacies. They have done 2 million checks to date. We have sent 270,000 blood pressure monitors to houses and have instigated mid-life NHS health checks to look specifically at early heart indicators so that we can try to tackle the problem that the pandemic caused.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, we have had lots of plans and initiatives for reducing deaths from heart disease. Despite that, variation in both preventive care and outcomes have persisted for years now. They are exaggerated by deprivation and ethnicity.
Let me give two examples. First, 40% of people with high blood pressure have failed to be diagnosed— I know that the Government have an initiative for pharmacies checking blood pressure—and, even when they are diagnosed, 10% of them do not get the appropriate medication. Secondly, there are examples of people suffering from atrial fibrillation not getting the appropriate anti-coagulation treatment; we then find that 60% of the strokes that occur in these patients are because they have not been properly medicated.
It is these variations in care and prevention that we need to tackle. It is disappointing to see that some of the ICB plans do not take on the need to reduce this variation, particularly in deprived areas.