Health and Social Care Bill

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 130, 131, 147, 150, which are in my name. I have also added my name to Amendments 215 and 218. These are very big groups and the Minister has my sympathy. I am sure he is listening very carefully to all the advice that he is receiving. I would particularly like to add my support to the remarks made about the power of procurement to promote innovation.

I want to speak about research and the research duty. My amendments are designed to add weight to the research duties in the Bill and follow on from the excellent debate on Clause 5 in relation to the Secretary of State’s research duty. I thank the Minister for his letter, which he has circulated to those who took part in that debate, although I fear that it may have raised rather more questions than it has answered. I apologise to the noble Earl for that, and I would like to go through a few of them now. I declare an interest as chief executive of a medical research charity, Breast Cancer Campaign.

In the debate on the research duty in Clause 5, many excellent examples of research were highlighted. It might be useful very briefly to reflect again on the impact that research has on the lives of people in this country, and to mention a report on cancer survival rates by Macmillan Cancer Support that had a great impact in the media last week. It highlighted that people now live nearly six times longer after their cancer diagnosis than was the case 40 years ago. Many noble Lords will be aware that for nine of the 20 cancers studied by Macmillan, median survival time is three years or less, with little improvement since the 1970s. The report highlighted the achievements that research has made but also that there is an awful lot more work to do.

It is also important to remember that there is a lot of research about quality of life. For instance, median survival time for breast cancer has doubled since the 1970s. Investment in research has played a fundamental role in this and yet more than 12,000 women still die from breast cancer every year. As I said, research is not only about improving survival rates. Many women with advanced breast cancer live with complex support requirements that are frequently not met, as evidenced by the research published recently by Breast Cancer Care and funded by my charity, which raises serious questions about pain control, for example. Ensuring that the NHS is committed to supporting research is absolutely key to addressing long-term improvements in survival but also improvements in quality of life for patients today.

Amendments 130 and 131 are intended to strengthen the research duty that has been placed on the Commissioning Board. Amendment 39, which we talked about a few days ago, removed the phrase “have regard to the need to” from the research duty on the Secretary of State, thereby strengthening it, and Amendment 130 seeks to do the same for the research duty on the Commissioning Board. During the debate on Clause 5, the noble Lord, Lord Willis, explained eloquently why the words “have regard to the need to” in the clause would be better removed ,and how by doing that we would have greater clarity and a better statement of intent would be established. So it would be helpful if the Minister could explain why we need to see those qualifying words in this clause. It would be particularly useful to be given practical examples of the effect that removing the words would have, because I suspect that they are not necessary and that the Bill might be better off without them.

I was also extremely heartened to hear the Minister say that he sympathised with me and with many other noble Lords when we argued that the research duty should be strengthened and that he would undertake a “closer consideration” of the research duty. I would welcome hearing a little more about his thoughts on that today, particularly whether any amendments to Clause 5 could be in the making, and whether they could be read across into Clause 20.

Moving on to Amendment 131, this seeks further clarity on the meaning of,

“research on matters relevant to the health service”.

I do not want to rehearse the arguments made previously in relation to Clause 5 and the wording of this phrase except to request a further explanation of its definition, including practical examples to aid our understanding which I hope the Minister will be able to provide either today or later in writing. In correspondence, the Minister helpfully clarified that public health was covered by the current definition, which was an important point for the noble Lord, Lord Warner, as I recall. However, the intention of Amendment 131 is to seek further clarification and a definition of the phrase so that we can understand whether it is sufficiently comprehensive. Public health is one issue that we are very clear about. It is covered, but we need to be confident that the duty is comprehensive in that regard. I believe that a more substantial definition is required and I am pleased to have the opportunity to request this today. For example, with this definition in place, what are the implications for NHS staff who are involved in supporting research? Will there, for example, be sufficient research nurses to support research activity, will clinical training incorporate time for research and how will research successes be recognised and encouraged as part of NHS career progression and structures?

In terms of what we know about the Commissioning Board, what will it be doing with respect to research? The Government have attempted to reassure noble Lords that the Commissioning Board is aware of the need to promote research and indeed that one of the board’s most important functions will be to support a culture that promotes research and innovation. I welcome this but I feel that in practice there is still very little detail about how this will happen. It appears that research will not form one of the six key portfolios of the board, but will fall under the commissioning development portfolio. Will this include, as I believe the Minister’s letter suggested, the development of commissioning tools and commissioning guidance ensuring that patient care is commissioned so as to support the conduct of research in the NHS? I note with interest that the Government are committed to ensuring that the systems and processes for commissioning used by the NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups will ensure that research is promoted, supported and funded by the NHS, including the tariff, commissioning guidance and processes for authorising and supporting the development of clinical commissioning groups. That is important, but I would be grateful if the Minister were able to provide further detail on the activities of the Commissioning Board in relation to research.

Will the development of commissioning tools and guidance as defined be sufficient to embed a culture of research in the NHS? While we have heard that the tariff for patient care will incorporate the costs of patients who are taking part in research projects, how will infrastructure costs be captured? Obviously I am thinking about the cost, for example, of storing tissue for research purposes. I fear that what we have been provided with so far is a number of ad hoc references to research that do not attempt to embed comprehensively a research culture into the NHS or set out a vision of what the research duties would mean in practice.

That brings me to Amendments 147 and 150. Two clear opportunities to ensure that the board is accountable for its actions with respect to the research duty now present themselves in relation to the business plan and the annual plan. I note with interest—and I believe that many others have noticed this—that the board must publish a business plan setting out how it proposes to exercise its functions in that year and in each of the next two following years, and at the end of the year it must also publish an annual report on how it intends to exercise its functions. There is therefore a great opportunity here. However, I am puzzled as to why Clause 20 establishes that the business plan and the annual plan must report how the board proposes to discharge its duties only under new Sections 13E and 13P, and likewise explain in the annual report its performance under those sections, which cover the duties on the improvement of quality of services and public involvement in consultation by the board. Again that is very important, but there is no comparative requirement with respect to new Section 13L and the duty on research. Again, there is an opportunity here to improve the feedback loop. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain what plans there might be to bring forward government amendments or to accept the amendments now before the Committee.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and particularly to support her comments about the duties in respect of research. But perhaps I may also say that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, raised a very important issue in her opening remarks, which is the definition of the difference between a duty to provide and a duty to commission. There is a subtle but important difference between the two. Commissioning, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, clearly stated, is something for which there is a huge budget, so it is very important indeed that it is used effectively. I was particularly interested in Amendment 129A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. We are all puzzled about the Government’s intentions in terms of prizes and incentives to encourage innovation and to bring research out of the labs, if you like, to the bedside.

There are some extremely good examples of this. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, mentioned the work of his noble friend Lord Darzi, particularly the Health Innovation Challenge Fund. I have just finished chairing the fund’s three-year review, and it is interesting to note that three years into the five-year programme, new devices, technologies and procedures are being brought forward from research to clinical outcome. Some 13 of these are now up and running, and some are quite remarkable. We have seen the groundbreaking research to deal with the onset of blindness being undertaken at Oxford. Within five years we will have gene therapies that will make a huge difference to patients suffering from a whole range of conditions, including macular degeneration. That will have a massive effect not only on patients’ lives, but also on the health service budget itself. It is important work and there are other good examples on which we need to move forward.

I want to speak specifically to Amendments 215 and 218 tabled in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Turnberg. I should also declare an interest as chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities. Amendment 215 concerns the role and responsibilities of clinical commissioning groups towards research and includes, within their commissioning plans, how they intend to execute their duty as defined in new Section 14X. That commissioning groups should have a duty to promote research was recommended by Professor Steve Field, the chair of the NHS Future Forum, when he said in his report:

“Support for research and innovation is also important for evidence-based commissioning and practice, so the report recommends that commissioning consortia should have a duty to promote research and innovation and the use of research evidence in the NHS”—

a recommendation which was immediately taken by the Government, to their credit, and, indeed, was welcomed by the medical research community.