Health: Anorexia

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lord Giddens for promoting this very important debate. I commence by declaring an interest as a trustee of the charity Action on Addiction, which provides day and residential accommodation for people suffering primarily from drink and drug addiction, but additionally we have many people who are cross-addicted. We deal with people with eating disorders, gambling difficulties, sex addictions, nicotine problems and a whole list of difficulties. Invariably, it is unusual to find a person with just one addictive issue that we have to address.

Anorexia nervosa is an extraordinarily difficult disease to deal with. The level of success when people leave at the end of treatment is often fairly small by comparison with the progress that can be made when dealing with people with drug and alcohol addictions and indeed, to a degree, with those with obesity. It is on the obesity side—the other eating disorders—that I wish to address my remarks. I address them as a founding member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity, which is due to be launched in Parliament on 16 April and is long overdue. I hope that there will be a good response to it from the Government.

Last week, I was moved when I read the report highlighted in the Guardian which referred to the UK as the fat man of Europe. The full-page coverage of the report from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges referred to the almost unstoppable growth of obesity and said that the number of people falling ill with it is almost beyond what can be coped with by the NHS. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges is united—as are many other people—in seeing obesity as a problem of epidemic proportions and one of the greatest public health crises currently facing the United Kingdom.

I wish to pose a number of questions to the noble Earl on that topic. Does he agree with what the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges stated last week? What do the Government think about the report? The academy wants a dramatic increase in efforts to counter obesity and has made 10 recommendations for action. Time does not permit me to go into those tonight, but I specifically ask the noble Earl to address one of them. It asks the NHS to spend at least £300 million over the next three years to tackle the serious problem of the shortage of weight management programmes so that more patients can be helped in a supportive and sensitive manner. Since reading this, it is difficult to find the extent to which support is currently being given. As I will tell the Minister in a moment, people indicate that that support is declining rather than increasing.

I also heard in the course of my inquiries last week that an estimate has now been made that more than 70% of the million people employed by the NHS are classed as obese. Could the Minister please make an observation on that? As the principal person responsible for employing them, could he say what he intends to do about it, as it is an area in which the Government have a degree of responsibility?

Secondly, last week, prompted by the prospect of this debate, I went to visit an outfit in south London called Discovery. It is an organisation in the private sector, verging on a charitable operation, which provides two levels of service: contracts with the NHS to provide direct weight management programmes for individuals who are obese and in real trouble; and training for people in the NHS and related bodies who are endeavouring to start weight management programmes for those who are classed as obese. Discovery tells me that it is extraordinarily fearful about what the future holds for it under the changed arrangements set out in the Health and Social Care Act, which comes into force on 1 April. It says that the PCTs, which previously provided funding and contracts, are now disappearing. The contracts are also disappearing and not being renewed anywhere. Many weight management providers are facing the possibility that, although we have this growth in obesity, unless something happens in April, they may well go out of business later in the year. This is apparently a fear held not just within the organisation I mentioned but elsewhere as well. Therefore, I would like to know what the Minister intends to do about the immediate problem faced by people in this arena, when all the calls are for greater investment, not less.