Lung Health

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to implement the recommendations of the Taskforce for Lung Health’s five year plan for improving lung health in England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford) (Con)]

My Lords, the NHS has worked closely with the Taskforce for Lung Health and the British Lung Foundation to develop a national programme for respiratory and cardiovascular disease. This will improve lung health by piloting a lung health check programme, expanding quality-assured spirometry, undertaking pharmacy medicine reviews in primary care networks and improving self-management support. In addition, access to smoking cessation interventions will be increased and a national workforce group will be established. Finally, the Government have committed to improving choice and ending variation in end-of-life care services.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that response. She will be aware that lung disease is often underestimated as a problem; one in five of us is likely to be affected in our lifetime and priority has not really been given to it over the past few decades. Given that outcomes have hardly improved either, will she look again at the response and commit the Government to implementing the task force report in full?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. He is absolutely right that respiratory illness can be extremely serious. The UK has a higher rate of respiratory deaths than any other country in the OECD; this is a clinical priority for the NHS and the Government are committed to driving it forward. We are working with the British Lung Foundation and the NHS to deliver the co-designed lung foundation’s plan and I am happy to give him that commitment now.