NHS: Patients with Allergies

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Keeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this short debate on this important subject. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath on obtaining the debate and on her excellent opening speech, and I am very pleased to follow my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn.

It is a surprising fact that one in three people in the UK live with allergies—perhaps it will not surprise any of us in the Room now, having heard the opening speeches. I am one of those 21 million people, as I have a number of food allergies or intolerances, which have increased over the last 30 years. My allergies are not as serious as the ones that cause an anaphylactic reaction, but they do affect day-to-day living, as I have to avoid wheat gluten, rich dairy products and—at this time of year perhaps the most difficult exclusion—chocolate.

Avoiding allergens in products at home has become a little easier. Thirty years ago. it was very hard to avoid wheat, which is often in many products with ingredients labelled as starch but which is often wheat starch. I learned to cook with different flours, as I am sure every parent with a child with allergy learns to do, but they often had to be bought at health food shops. Now, large supermarkets have a section for “free from” or “made without” products and stock a range of gluten-free flours. At this point, it is worth explaining to those who are not in this world that these products are very expensive indeed. Small loaves cost more than £3, and many of the flour products are very expensive, so the point made about low-income families is very pertinent.

However, the most difficult aspect of day-to-day living with allergies is avoiding allergens in food when eating out, including at work and at school, buying food when travelling or on holiday and buying food from takeaways, because in that situation you have to rely on a shop selling food knowing which ingredients are in the products. It relies on chefs, kitchen staff, waiters and baristas playing their part in faithfully recording requests to avoid allergens and passing that information on to the staff preparing food or drinks, but that does not always happen.

An article in the Times highlighted that more than 50 young people, including a child of nine, have died in less than a decade as a result of severe allergic reactions to food or drinks bought in restaurants, cafés, shops or schools. We have heard in a number of colleagues’ speeches about Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died aged 15 after eating a Pret a Manger sandwich which contained sesame. As we have heard, her parents have campaigned on the issues in her case and been told of many deaths of other young people—almost all of which, it seems, were avoidable. They were shocked to hear of so many avoidable deaths. Her father Nadim said:

“When Natasha was growing up we didn’t know any other parents whose children were food-allergic and she was the only one in her primary and secondary school … Then we received thousands of letters when it became public from people who said, ‘We fear every day what happened to your child will happen to ours’”.


He also said that the common themes in the stories they were told by parents included a lack of understanding among catering staff about allergies and how serious they can be, or a human error meaning that they were given the wrong food product.

As we have heard, Natasha’s parents’ campaigns have been focused on two areas: Natasha’s law, an important measure that came into force in 2021, tightening legislation to force outlets that package their own food products on-site to provide a full list of ingredients on the labels, with any of the top 14 allergens, including milk, nuts, eggs and sesame, highlighted; and, as we have heard, the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation is funding a £2.7 million immunotherapy trial across six hospitals that aims to gradually desensitise patients to their allergens through everyday foods. On the number of cases, it is worth saying that, as an MP, I had two local cases within one year of young people who tragically died after eating food containing allergens, despite in both cases the young person or their parents describing their allergies and being assured by waiters and serving staff that the food they were eating was safe for them.

Allergy UK tells us in its excellent briefing that 62% of people with allergies say it affects all aspects of their lives, and I am sure all of us who are contributing here can appreciate that, but among adults with anaphylaxis 40% experience post-traumatic stress disorder because, as my noble friend Lady Ramsey said earlier, it strikes terror in parents’ hearts. Allergy UK also tells us that, despite hospital admissions for people with allergies being 615% up in the last 20 years and rising sharply among children, we have only 40 specialist allergists in this country. As we have heard, specialist services are not well spread across the country; the pattern is distorted. The NHS underutilises preventive strategies such as early allergen introduction; and treatments like immunotherapy have been rejected due to perceptions of the high short-term cost, despite the fact that immunotherapy drastically reduces the high cost of future emergency admissions and hospitalisations.

I join Allergy UK in hoping that the Labour Government may be more receptive to preventive strategies, and I would be grateful if the Minister could give us an update on any possible new preventive strategies for allergies. I also ask my noble friend to look at the call from Allergy UK for the Government to introduce a specialist allergy nurse and dietician at primary care level within every integrated system. With 21 million people living with allergies and so many avoidable deaths of young people and hospitalisations due to allergens, I hope the Government can agree to look at the gaps in allergy management within primary care.