NHS: Cost-effectiveness

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I agree with the noble Baroness. One of the aims of our reforms is to integrate health and social care in a much more seamless way. There is another element to our reforms, which may have escaped noble Lords' notice. It is our wish to bear down on health inequalities in a much more systematic way than we have done hitherto. Both health and social care have a part to play in that.

[Lord Tugendhat]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Does my noble friend not agree that whenever an international organisation such as the OECD or the IMF has good words to say about the conduct of the British economy, the Chancellor of the Exchequer always welcomes them and uses them as an argument to support the Government’s economic policy? Would it not be helpful, when other organisations have good words to say about the NHS, for the Government to welcome them with equal fervour? Of course the NHS can improve and must modernise and move with the times; but when significant institutions such as the Commonwealth Fund in America, and the one that has just been quoted, have good words to say about the NHS, surely the Minister should be less carping.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, in my opening words I said that we welcomed the report. I stressed that we fully acknowledge the improvements that have been made by the NHS over the past few years, which the report highlights. However, it is limited in its scope. The difficulty with all these reports is comparing like with like, particularly with different health systems. I am not decrying the work that went into the report, but I will say that perhaps some OECD reports take us closer to how well the UK's health system is performing in relation to those of other countries.