Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-01-24
Topic: Health
Narendra Babubhai Patel (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am only teasing I declare an interest as a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and as a professor emeritus at the University of Dundee, where I have spent all my life bar the first 18 years. I say this because we have lost something in the United Kingdom. A key strength of our academic clinical departments was a worldwide reputation for conducting health service-related research. We were second to none, and I mean that. We have lost that because we have changed the environment. People who work in clinical academic institutions—our so-called teaching hospitals—no longer have the environment to promote that. It was the duty of those of us who worked in clinical academic departments to grow the next generation of academics. It was important that we were all involved in conducting clinical research that produced innovation, better care for patients and a first-rate, first-class, internationally renowned next generation of academics. We do not have that any more, and anything we can do through this Bill to bring that back would be a major plus I will speak to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. Much has been said, excellently, and I will try not to repeat it, but a strengthened research mandate through this Bill could support patients, clinicians, NHS organisations and research. The patient benefits from increased research activity have already been mentioned, but there is a significant variability across the UK in the opportunity for patients to engage in research. A strengthened mandate could support ensuring that all patients can access clinical trials and their associated benefits. Therefore, wider changes are needed to increase the competitiveness of the UK as a destination for research, particularly through the proposed changes to clinical trials legislation, and through increases in Department of Health and Social Care and NIHR funding This could include measures to support faster approval timelines and closer multiagency collaborations. Clinical research has clear benefits to patients, as has already been mentioned. NHS trusts with higher levels of research have a higher rating from the CQC and better outcomes, as have already been said. During Covid, the UK has demonstrated its potential with the success of Covid-19 research, with 68 commercial Covid trials launched in the UK in 2020—the third-highest globally, beating the United States and the rest of Europe How did we manage to do that? It is because, during the emergency, we set up methodologies that allow patients to be involved in trials more quickly by creating a voluntary registry, where patients themselves volunteer to take part in research. I also note the clinical recovery trials that we set up—some noble Lords might have seen the article in the Times, with Sir Martin Landray suggesting that we follow that process in the future to try to find treatments for other common diseases. If we do that, we will lead globally. The NHS has the capacity to do that, but it now requires the will and the leadership from the centre to drive that. The clinical academics will be up to it—they just want to be given a chance. Let us do that, because we have demonstrated that we can.