NHS: Treatment of Children from Other Countries

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I will be glad to take back to the department the comments of the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, but I reiterate that it is individual expert centres that are responsible for liaising with referring clinicians. By definition this has to be done on a case-by-case basis because we are talking about highly specialised treatments for rare diseases. Again, there is no set nationwide policy for local implementation because of the very nature of the challenge and the specialism to which the noble Baroness refers.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, maybe a good place to start would be to be bolder and more ambitious with the rare diseases framework that already supports international collaboration as part of the Government’s policy. As part of this framework, will the Minister investigate setting up an international centre of excellence in the UK that could be funded by both the UK and international partners for procedures and R&D to be carried out here, which would deal with some of the problems that both noble Lords have mentioned?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right to make reference to the UK rare diseases framework. The intention of that is to improve the lives of those with rare diseases—for example, by helping to get a faster diagnosis, increasing awareness of rare diseases, better co-ordination and care, and improving access to care, treatment and drugs for those in this country. I will add his suggestion to the list of matters to raise with the department.