NHS: Cost-effectiveness

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the department takes its cue from NICE. I am sure that my noble friend will agree that exercise is never irrelevant to the question of obesity. I think that my noble friend's difficulty centres on how relevant it is in relation to reducing calorie intake. No doubt the debate on that will continue.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

My Lords, does the noble Earl agree that no system of health, particularly with an ageing population, can be effective and efficient unless we also provide the best possible social care to link with it?

[Earl Howe]

I agree with the noble Baroness. One of the aims of our reforms is to integrate health and social care in a much more seamless way. There is another element to our reforms, which may have escaped noble Lords' notice. It is our wish to bear down on health inequalities in a much more systematic way than we have done hitherto. Both health and social care have a part to play in that.