Health and Care Bill

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Wednesday 26th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 266, I shall not speak for long because everything has been said. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, explained the problem very clearly as did other speakers.

The only reason I want to speak is that in April last year I spoke in favour of the Private Member’s Bill introduced to this House by my noble friend Lady Wyld which sought to prevent cosmetic procedures being performed in England on people aged under 18 unless under the direction of a medical practitioner. The Bill was passed with cross-party and government support. As a result, children are now better protected. It is high time that we protected the population at large. When one hears of all the side-effects and that people can buy a product online and inject it into themselves or somebody else, it feels like the wild west, and the consequences can be quite dramatic, as we have heard. I very much hope that the Government will be able to support this amendment. This is not complicated and needs to be done quickly.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

I want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, because I am former chair of the Specialised Healthcare Alliance. I shall speak very briefly in support of Amendments 164 and 178 in his name and that of my noble friend Lady Wheeler.

Every reorganisation of the NHS leaves patients who have a rare or less common condition anxious about how their particular needs will be assessed, how they will be met and even how they will be noted. It is sadly true that the rarer or more specialised a condition, the more it comes down to a postcode lottery whether the patient will be able to access care in spite of established national standards. Not only is it harder to access care, it is also harder for these patients to access the support groups or information networks which are vital when finding out the sometimes rare information about these conditions. The suggestion in Amendment 164 that the CQC assess the provision by ICBs of care for those with rare or less common conditions would provide the assurance that is so badly need.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in part because I listened to the lecture with which we started this session but more because it is an old anecdote, I shall forbear from telling my hospital food horror story. However, I will pick up on the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, about hospital food and how hard people are trying to improve the situation. This relates to the answer the Minister gave me on Monday in Oral Questions. Of course, it is dependent on the budget that caterers have and the quality of the food that is available to them. I was pleased that the Minister then said that the Government are looking to tackle government procurement to improve the quality of vegetables and fruit. In terms of joining up the dots, that is a useful point to make.

On Amendment 243, I offer the Green group’s support and note that, having been in your Lordships’ House for only a little more than two years, I have debated a very similar amendment at least once before—I think it must have been on the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill. We have all seen briefings that are very much a cry from the heart from the nursing profession for this to happen. Surely we can get this into this Bill.