NHS: Primary Care Trusts

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they will take to prevent primary care trusts inappropriately restricting access to patient treatments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, it is inappropriate for a primary care trust to impose blanket bans on treatments, or to restrict access to treatments on the basis of cost alone. The department will ask strategic health authorities to investigate any examples of such behaviour, and appropriate action will be taken.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, in thanking the noble Earl, I remind the House of my health interests in the register. The noble Earl will be aware that there is now abundant evidence that some primary care trusts are restricting treatments that are deemed appropriate, in some cases against the guidelines issued by NICE. Given that, will he go further and seek to ensure that he and his ministerial colleagues intervene in the NHS where this is happening so that we can be satisfied that the NHS will still provide a comprehensive service?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, yes, we will intervene if ever it is demonstrated that primary care trusts are restricting treatments on a blanket basis or on a cost basis unrelated to clinical need. Any arbitrary restriction on access to treatment of that kind is unacceptable. We have made that clear repeatedly, as has Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director, on a number of occasions. However, that is not the same as saying that the NHS should be unconcerned about value for money. It should be very concerned about it. It should not spend money on treating a patient when that patient is unlikely to derive clinical benefit from the treatment. Therefore, we need to distinguish that kind of case from the kind cited by the noble Lord.