Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, is so grateful to the Minister that she asked two of us to convey her thanks for the time he has given to addressing her concerns. She is very happy with these amendments.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, I am the third person to congratulate the Minister. I add the support of these Benches for these amendments, which address unlicensed special medicines, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on her tenacity in pursuing this issue and securing an important concession from the Government. I am sorry she cannot be here, but we can be pretty sure she will be reading Hansard to make sure we have got it right.

It has been hard to understand why the Government were refusing to recognise the need for urgent action on medicinal specials, particularly in view of the substantial price variation between hospital and community care, the many patients in community and primary care who are currently denied access to some specials, and the potential savings across the NHS that introducing a cheaper and more cost-effective whole-market procurement system will provide.

We are very pleased that the Minister has now recognised the need for the Bill to address this important issue in England and Wales. I welcome the legislative framework he has presented. As he pointed out, he has an extensive consultation exercise to conduct on all parts of the Bill, and this will certainly be included in that.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am truly touched to have been thanked personally by proxy by two noble Baronesses. I am grateful for that, and I am grateful for the support for these amendments, which are a testament to the tenacity of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay.

I do not think it is quite fair to say that the Government did not recognise the need for action. The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, disinterred a work programme that had been put on pause in order to deal with the Bill and discovered that lots of interesting work and thinking was going on, so we have been able to bring that to the fore, which is a fantastic thing, and the way legislation should work.