Respiratory Syncytial Virus

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My noble friend is correct in that, for the vast majority of people—infants in this case—it is mild, flu-like symptoms at most. At the same time, it is responsible for 35,000 hospitalisations and 20 to 30 deaths a year, so it is a serious thing that we need to get on top of. We are looking for the best of both worlds. That 90% of two year-olds will have had RSV and so will have that natural protection is a good thing. But in the most serious cases—the risk groups are those with congenital lung or heart disease or spinal muscular problems—these new treatments really will help and are very important.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, the innovative vaccines and treatments mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, all require UK clinical trials. The number of clinical trials initiated in the UK declined by 4% between 2017 and 2021. What are the Government doing to reverse this decline so as to bring valuable industry money back into the NHS and cutting-edge treatments, such as RSV vaccines and treatments, to patients?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Baroness is correct. In fact, my maiden speech was in a debate about how we can bring life sciences to bear more. The point about NHS clinical trials and the fact that we are not using this massive potential asset was very much a feature of that. It is key to the work we are doing—I had a meeting on it just this week—so I agree with the noble Baroness and hope we will see improvements in this space.