NHS: Equitable Access

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to ensure that National Health Service patients have equitable access to the benefits of (1) artificial intelligence, (2) genomic medicine, (3) new drugs, and (4) innovative treatments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord O'Shaughnessy) (Con)]

My Lords, the NHS was founded on the principle of universal access and we are committed to making sure that that remains. To achieve this we are establishing a genomic medicine service to provide equitable access to testing across the NHS. We have commissioned the Topol review so that our staff can maximise patient benefits from technological advances and we are accelerating access to innovation across the country by expanding the role of academic health science networks.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, happy birthday to our NHS.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Baroness Thornton]

I thank the Minister for his detailed Answer. My Question concerns the future in the next 70 years. One of the key barriers to ensuring that NHS patients have equitable access to genomic medicine, new drugs and innovative treatment is the pressure on the workforce and lack of protected time for the workforce to develop research and to translate new research into practice. Some 25% of medics do research in their own time. This suggests a welcome hunger for innovation, but only 0.1% of NHS money is set aside for the adoption and spread of innovation. That seems modest. With the new funding agreement and the 10-year plan in preparation, will the Government support and enable our research base and ensure the continuation of clinical trials across the EU post Brexit?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank the noble Baroness for her Question and join the whole House in wishing many happy returns to the NHS on its 70th birthday. She asked an extremely good question: how do we make sure that the NHS is equipped for the future and that everybody can benefit from the technological advances we are seeing take place? I point her in the direction of three issues. First, the National Institute for Health Research has more than £1 billion of funding and supports the translation of research into new technology every day. It is based in the NHS and uses NHS staff. I have also recently commissioned the department to look at the money spent on innovation, which we think is around £750 million in total, to make sure that it supports the uptake of effective medicines and treatments better than it does today, and to make sure that staff have time. Finally, in response to her last question, as we set out during the passage of the withdrawal Act, we will align ourselves to the clinical trials regulation as much as possible, whatever the outcome of Brexit.