Healthcare: Costs

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my noble friend is quite right to identify dementia as a particular cost pressure over the next few years. The coalition Government signalled in their programme our intention to prioritise funding for dementia research. The spending review confirmed that and committed to real-terms increases in spending on health research. This investment is indeed essential if we are to increase the quality, productivity and cost-effectiveness of the NHS.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I return to a question which I posed previously to the Minister and which remains unanswered. Does he not agree that if patients in the health service knew what the costs of their treatment, care and drugs were, as they do in the private sector, this would create a downward pressure, which would reduce costs overall?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I know that this is a question to which the noble Lord and other noble Lords regularly return, and it has a superficial attraction. The problem with it, I am advised, is that patients who are informed of the cost of their treatment—some patients, at any rate—take that as a deterrent to accepting the treatment in the first place. That is something we need to avoid. Nevertheless, there is an underlying point here; there is a need to provide better information to patients about their treatment so that they can take ownership of their state of health.