Health: Alma-Ata Declaration

Lord Rea Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

It is the key rulebook of the World Health Organization, but we should also remember that in the intervening 40 years we have had the sustainable development goals. Sustainable development goal 3 on health contains many of the provisions in the declaration. The sustainable development goals, unlike the millennium development goals, apply to all countries that sign them, not just least-developed countries.

[Lord Rea (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness particularly mentioned the programme partnership arrangements but we have changed that and distribute the money through a different mechanism to many similar organisations. I must put on record the fact that the UK Government and the people of the United Kingdom can be proud as they have done more in the area of family planning and providing access than any other Government. We initiated the first family planning summit in 2012, and we held the last one in 2017. We have made huge commitments in this area and are the second-largest donor, in overall terms, in this very important area of giving women control over their own lives and futures, which is important not only for the economy but for education.

[Lord Rea]

The Alma-Ata conference and declaration changed the attitudes of Governments and health planners by demonstrating the cost-effectiveness and humanity of universal primary care as compared with possibly more prestigious but very expensive secondary care hospitals. Is that not relevant to the situation we have in this country today, with hospitals full of patients with chronic diseases which could have been prevented and could certainly be cared for in the community if we had properly funded primary and social care?

[Lord Bates]

We need to remember that, in Alma-Ata in particular, we are referring to some of the poorest countries in the world. We have the best health service in the world. That is not just my word; that was recognised by the Commonwealth Fund, which produced that statistic saying that we have the best healthcare. It is a tremendous service. In many of the countries that we are dealing with, people have to travel for days or weeks to get any sort of health intervention. We need a priority to ensure that those people are brought into the ambit of the sustainable development goals so that they get the healthcare they need and we save lives as well as being mindful of the important responsibility we have in this country.