Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill (Money)

Debate between Phillip Lee and Chris Heaton-Harris

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I thank the Government for introducing, as is the convention of this place, the money resolution on my private Member’s Bill.

Several colleagues have expressed their concerns about the Bill, as the Opposition spokesman has just done. I must say to them, and to the Association of Medical Research Charities and other bodies, that many of the briefings seem to relate to the previous iteration of the Saatchi Bill that went through three Readings in the other place and have not been changed for this Bill, even though this Bill is massively different from that brought forward by Lord Saatchi in the House of Lords.

The Bill has two elements. It proposes that a database of innovation be established for only registered medical practitioners to use when they innovate or depart from standard medical practice. As we have already heard, doctors and surgeons say that they regularly innovate.

[Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)]

I would never question my hon. Friend’s intentions in this area, but the AMRC’s summary states:

“we do not see the need for this legislation and do not believe the Bill will achieve its aim of encouraging medical innovation.”

It goes on to say that

“this Bill…as it stands is unnecessary and may adversely impact on patients and medical research”.

That view is supported, among others, by Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. Does that not give him pause for thought before he proceeds with the Bill?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Yes, it does. I have talked to those organisations constantly from the conception of the idea of stealing these two ideas from the Saatchi Bill, and I will continue to talk to every organisation that wishes to talk to me about the Bill. If that was a bid to be on the Bill Committee to offer an alternative view and help me pick through the details of the legislation to ensure that it does what I intend it to do, I welcome my hon. Friend’s approach because a couple of people who would have added great value to the process and the Bill are not able to sit on the Committee.

I gave the example on Second Reading of a surgeon who had innovated and saved the life of his patient, but who was unable quickly to communicate that to his peers as there was no comprehensive means of doing so. The database has been called for by many of the medical colleges, as is acknowledged in the briefings that my hon. Friend will have read. The database is important in spreading the best innovations, because it will include not just the successes of any innovation, but its failures. That will allow best practice to spread quickly and for other registered medical practitioners to learn from any innovation. It will not be available for patients to access and will be held by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, as we have just heard, which is where the money resolution directs the money towards.

The database will not cover research and will not hamper recruitment to clinical trials. Nothing in the Bill will allow doctors to bypass any process or requirement that has been set by their trust in relation to undertaking innovative treatments in the NHS, including the requirement to ensure that commissioners will fund any treatment that is not provided by the NHS. As we all know, individual innovation is incredibly important, but it is not a suitable substitute for medical research, which usually tests the efficacy of treatments in a systematic way. I hope that successful innovations will lead to systematic research projects as the evidence builds around a particular specialty and that they will thereby encourage more clinical trials.

The second part of the Bill, which I fully acknowledge is much more controversial, will give registered medical practitioners a supplementary method of demonstrating that they have acted responsibly while innovating. It closely mirrors the existing legal test, the Bolam test, that is used when clinical negligence proceedings reach the court stage. It brings the test forward and enables doctors to use it to demonstrate that they have acted responsibly before they enter the courtroom. It does not change the common law.