Healthcare Services: Acute, Primary and Community

Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, for her incredibly powerful opening and the chance to speak in this important debate. I stand here with two hats on: first, as the survivor of a major trauma who has spent a disproportionate amount of time in all parts of the healthcare system, and, secondly, and far more importantly, as patron of Day One Trauma, which I shall describe later.

I will make three points. First, we must start with the patient, not with the system. Too often, it seems that, as policymakers, we think about the policy and the organisational structure rather than the experience of the patient in the system. That is particularly true for trauma victims. I start with them because trauma is perhaps the sharpest end of our healthcare services. Trauma patients have to go through so many of the different services that are offered, from intensive care to rehab and community services and then to the long-term support they may need as they live at home.

When someone is hit by a car, has a fall or experiences a major trauma, they do not think about the system that they are in—they think about surviving. They do not think, “I’ve now left acute care and I’m in the long-term recovery ward”; they think, “I want to recover”. What matters to them is whether they receive physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychological support, pain management, speech and language therapy, and practical help to return to work and life. I have met many trauma survivors through Day One, a charity that helps people when they have a severe physical trauma, with about 30,000 people entering the system every year. The charity works alongside healthcare professionals in the most intense settings to help people navigate what is happening to them. It could be help with how to get benefits while they are off work for a long period or how to work out whether or not to amputate a limb—very brutal decisions at the most difficult time of their lives, often involving working with their families alongside them. At Day One Trauma, too often we see patients bumping up against different bits of a system as opposed to being seen as a patient and one person.

That brings me to my second point, which, perhaps inevitably, is about technology. I welcome much of what is in the NHS modernisation Bill, particularly around single patient records, but this sometimes feels far removed from the reality of what is happening in the system. We must engage more deeply with people who are expert in this area and give them power within the huge networks that exist in the NHS to change the patient experience. It is not acceptable that families and individuals, at the most difficult time of their lives, have to navigate so many different systems. We have already heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, about how people will be put into an online system only then to be chucked out to the telephone. Imagine if you cannot actually move or speak: how do you navigate the system then? Too often, at the time when we most profoundly need help and we have the opportunity to use technology, it is absent, both for the people caring for the patients and for the patients themselves.

I read just this morning on a blog from OpenAI—perhaps it was PR—that 230 million people a week are now using ChatGPT for health questions. Goodness knows what the quality of that information is. It is so important that we recognise what is happening in the outside world and try to build it into the system more effectively. We must start with the patient. We must join up policy, as opposed to organisational structures, that reflects the needs of how people are actually living with and experiencing the system. We must use technology to make sure that people have a more effective journey through their recovery, and that clinicians, doctors, physiotherapists and all the people who work so hard in the system are given the best shot at delivering the care they most urgently want to deliver.

Finally, we must support charities in the system. Again and again, both in my own journey and now as proud patron of a couple of them, I have seen how difficult it still is for charities to get access to some of the parts of the NHS where they want to help and where they are providing a vital ballast to the people working in the system more directly. Day One Trauma works across multiple trauma centres in the north of England. When its members are in the care units or acute care units, they are welcomed by the staff, because they are doing much of the work that the staff have no time to do. Similarly, Horatio’s Garden, a fantastic charity that builds gardens for spinal patients, gives access to the outdoors, doing valuable work for people at those acute moments.

We must be able to answer these three questions. Are we starting with the patient in these policies? Are we using technology to the best of our advantage? Are we enabling charities to help support the system where we do not have the resources ourselves?