NHS Long Term Plan

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I express my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath for securing the debate. I thank the Government too for producing the long-term plan. I join others in applauding Professor Dame Sally Davies’s annual report for 2018 and the recommendations she has produced on how we might achieve better health in the UK by 2040. It is a particularly impressive document. She is one of the bravest of our public health servants.

I will not say anything on alcohol because that has been more than adequately covered by my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins of Tavistock, but I will focus mainly on obesity, which is identified in the plan as one of the major problems we face. I share my noble friend Lord Hunt’s disappointment that there is a paucity of public health initiatives in the plan. I support the views expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and my noble friend Lord Turnberg on the importance of public health co-ordination and campaigning on obesity, which was also indirectly, in general terms, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who talked about how we need to raise our sights on where we are trying to go.

I have asked this question previously to the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy: where is the overarching co-ordinated national campaign against obesity? If it is truly the crisis that everyone keeps saying it is, why do we not have one? This morning, Public Health England reminded me of a whole variety of different initiatives it is running, but when I go to my GP and look at the noticeboard announcements, I see notices about smoking, drugs and alcohol, and services for babies, mothers and older patients. Obesity gets barely a mention, yet it is seen as one of the crises facing us. We must return to the topic of the amount of attention given to it centrally.

Last week, we had a very good debate on the inadequacy of local authority funding led by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. Its focus was again primarily on social care, but there was little mention of the very important responsibilities that now fall to local authorities regarding public health and public health campaigning. That again has been cut because of shortages of money at local authority level. I wrote to the Secretary of State when he took office pleading that he should give this a higher priority. I have had no reply, but maybe the Minister might follow this up to see whether his deliberations continue, and whether he will now respond positively and say that he is prepared to embrace this.

We really have to get a co-ordinated national campaign running, particularly for children. The plan focuses on people with diabetes and people with a BMI of 30-plus, but that excludes thousands of people who are obese and most of the children—there is nothing in it about children.

I tap my watch and see that I have come to the end of my remarks. Plenty of work can be done that does not necessarily cost money. We need to look at how we can engage children with programmes and games that will captivate them and turn their attention to their health. We can also look at cheap activities such as yoga that will help people find a way to look at their health and improve their positive outlook on life. There is much to be done. Is the Minister prepared to embrace some of these suggestions? We could then look forward to seeing a chapter 3 for the child obesity programme. When will it come?