Healthcare

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, the coalition Government’s strategy for the NHS is clear and very welcome. The first stage is the White Paper, consultation on which has just been completed. The responses were of a good volume. Three objectives were outlined in the White Paper: the one that we are discussing today, creating a patient-led NHS; improving healthcare outcomes; and increasing autonomy and accountability in the NHS. We also know from the comprehensive spending review that the funding is ring-fenced and is available only for the NHS.

Frankly, I sat in blank amazement listening to the noble Lord, Lord Winston, claim that at the general election the NHS was in its healthiest state for decades. I remind him that we were left with mixed wards, which we were told 13 years ago would be got rid of. We had the chaos of out-of-hours cover. I do not need to remind the noble Baroness on the Front Bench of a number of tragic cases. We had a situation where a number of brought-in, standby, out-of-hours doctors did not even speak English. We have had questionable care on the nursing front. I support what the noble Baroness said earlier. My wife is a retired GP and is pretty objective when it comes to nursing care. I am sorry to report that nursing care at Papworth is certainly not world-class. Frankly, it is pretty poor. We have a situation where cancer drugs have not been sorted out for the past 13 years. I make a plea to my noble friend on the Front Bench. If we have £200 million of ring-fenced money for cancer drugs, although it is to be deputed to the existing regional health authorities, can we not consult with cancer charities on which drugs they think would be a primary help in that particular budget? Perhaps I do not even have to mention IT and the billions that were spent on something that has not worked. Do not tell this Government that the NHS was left in the best state ever after the past 13 years.

I look back to a time when my wife was a second-phase GP fundholder. Most GPs were in the fundholding scheme: only a hard core were not. That was successful; it worked. It is no good the noble Lord shaking his head. GPs who went into fundholding achieved very short lists for operations. The scheme worked well and I am sorry to say that it was only through prejudice that the incoming Government got rid of GP fundholding and then produced modified targets that they thought were a substitute for it. They were not.

I will finish by saying a couple of words about medicines. Traditionally, medicines in the NHS have taken up between 10 and 12 per cent of the budget. I have noticed two worrying developments. First, the standard of generic substitutes is not what it should be. We have seen the recent case of Lipitor, and a number of other cases are documented in the pharmaceutical area. Something must be done about that situation. The second is counterfeit medicines, which I do not think were a problem 13 years ago. Again, I am not blaming the outgoing Government for this but there is now a problem across Europe with counterfeit medicines, and I shall mention two statistics. First, 62 per cent of medicines bought on the internet are counterfeit or substandard and, secondly, across the whole of Europe in 2006 no less than 2.7 million fake medicines were seized. I do not wish to say any more, other than that I look forward to receiving answers to the questions that I have raised.