Health: Tick-borne Encephalitis

Lord Winston Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right, and I am happy to recognise the organisation that she mentioned. In the first place, the tick toolkit and the work of PHE is in place to raise awareness, and work goes into providing advice to professionals so that early diagnosis is possible.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the problems with Lyme disease is that the symptoms that it causes mimic a whole range of different viral infections, many of which are much more common. Does the Minister feel that the Government are doing enough to raise awareness of Lyme disease among general practitioners, and is she satisfied that the screening tests—I think that they cost around £60 a time—are sufficient?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The noble Lord is quite right, and he understands this a lot better than I do. NICE published guidelines for health professionals in 2018 in an effort to ensure prompt diagnosis of Lyme disease. Obviously if it is recognised promptly and treated with antibiotics, acute Lyme disease is usually resolved without further complications. I will take away the question about the cost of the test to consider whether that has been a barrier; we have no evidence about that at this time.