Health: Hydrotherapy

Lord Walton of Detchant Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

Surely not. My noble friend has done a great deal herself to promote the potential psychological and physical benefits of hydrotherapy, and I am sure that she will continue to do so. Following her conversations with me over the past week or so, and at her request, I have sought for her and for other noble Lords with an interest in this area a meeting with the relevant Minister in the Department of Health, my honourable friend Anne Milton. That has been agreed and therefore I hope that the noble Baroness and others will be able to take this further forward.

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Muscular Dystrophy last year carried out a major survey of facilities across the UK for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy—to which the noble Baroness referred—and discovered that boys with that very serious progressive disease who live in places like Newcastle, Oxford, London around Queen Square, and Oswestry, survive into their 30s and sometimes even their 40s, whereas in other parts of the UK they still die in their teens? There is evidence that in the rehabilitation of these patients, hydrotherapy plays an extremely important role. What efforts are the Government making to make certain that this form of treatment, which is invaluable, becomes more widely available across the United Kingdom?