Lords
Oral Questions
20 October 2025
8 contributions
Healthcare Provision: Inequalities
My noble friend Lady Brown’s supplementary is about the experience of women. Last month, the Secretary of State for Health went on record saying that women should have consistent pain relief when coils are fitted. My noble friend has campaigned for 10 years to get proper pain relief for women who ar…
My Lords, clinical evidence has established that poor health care directly contributes to the current 22-year life expectancy gap between people with learning disabilities and the general population. Why is this unacceptable inequality simply becoming a grim statistic that the Government continue to…
+6 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
20 October 2025
9 contributions
HIV: Testing and Medical Care
My Lords, while progress is greatly welcome—I applaud the Government’s efforts and commitment in this area—does the Minister agree that, unless we move much more quickly, we have no chance of meeting the target of eliminating new infections by 2030? Last year, there were still over 3,000 new diagnos…
My Lords, I entirely support the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Black, but I urge the Government to go further. About 9 million people in the world who need HIV treatment are not receiving it at present. That position is being seriously worsened by the American Government’s regrettable decision t…
+7 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
14 October 2025
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
That the order of commitment of 23 April be discharged and the bill be committed to a Grand Committee; and that the instruction to the Committee of the Whole House of 23 April shall also be an instruction to the Grand Committee.
Lords
Oral Questions
13 October 2025
8 contributions
Alzheimer’s Disease
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer, but I will press her a little further. According to Alzheimer’s Research UK, one in three people in the UK living with dementia currently do not have a diagnosis. Unlike other major conditions, such as heart disease or cancer, dementia …
My Lords, having had the analysis of the results of incredibly extensive clinical trials on the use of GLP-1s to treat dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, this is an incredibly exciting potential development. Will the Minister please share with the House what the Government are doing to prep…
+6 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
19 September 2025
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Can the Minister explain why, despite requests from the sponsors of the Bill, and despite the precedent which has been taken with other Bills which were Private Members’ Bills but matters of conscience, such as capital punishment and abortion, the Government are not prepared to provide time so that …
My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Lord s ’ Interests , which refers to the facts that I have an assistant funded by Bernard Lewis to assist me in the conduct of this Bill and that Dignity in Dying funded the printing of the literature that I sent to your Lordships in connecti…
Lords
Oral Questions
18 September 2025
7 contributions
Genome Screening: Newborn Infants
I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer, because this is of course a very serious issue, particularly in the case of babies and minors. There are grave difficulties in obtaining informed consent. Every person may be born with hundreds of genetic mutations potentially associated with fat…
My Lords, I draw attention to my interest as chairman of UK Biobank. The value of large-cohort studies is not only in the collection of baseline data, and indeed, in this case, the genome sequences of the 100,000 newborns, but in the opportunity to secure the long-term longitudinal follow-up of part…
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
16 September 2025
9 contributions
National Health Service Regulations
My Lords, my concern is about the degree to which GP contracts are dictated by extremely prescriptive legislation. The recent change to keep GPs’ computers switched on overnight—rightly, to improve data sharing—is a striking example. It did not require just negotiation with GPs or advice from securi…
My Lords, I remind the House of my interest with the Dispensing Doctors’ Association. What assessment have the Government, in particular the Minister, made of the way in which the GP contract will impact on rural doctors—not least the Dispensing Doctors’ Association, which cannot even access the EPS…
+7 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
9 September 2025
Respiratory Syncytial Virus: Vaccination Programme
My Lords, I am sure we are all in agreement in our thanks to my noble friend Lady Ritchie for securing this important debate and for her very thorough and considered introduction. Acknowledgement has also rightly been paid to my noble friend for her campaigning and her raising of awareness of this i…
Lords
Oral Questions
8 September 2025
9 contributions
Suicide Reduction
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for her Answer. Wednesday 10 September is World Suicide Prevention Day; can my noble friend give the House further assurances that the Government are intent on delivering the suicide prevention strategy for England and the implementation of the ambition…
I know that the Minister has an interest in this. Would she please find time to read the report, published last week jointly by Cambridge and Bournemouth universities, on suicide and autism? Among all the neurodivergent conditions, autism has by far the highest suicide rate. It is not rocket science…
+7 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
3 September 2025
Prostate Cancer
My Lords, this has been an extremely valuable debate on what is a very important matter. I find much to commend in the points noble Lords have made. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mott, for bringing this debate forward, for his work in raising awareness of prostate cancer and for his con…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 June 2025
7 contributions
Diabetes: 10-Year Health Plan
I thank the Minister for that positive Answer. More than 12 million people in the UK now have diabetes or prediabetes, with research showing a staggering 51% increase in the last eight years in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes among under-40s in England, at an age when the condition is more aggress…
My Lords, following the report from the charity Breakthrough T1D, which found that people in lower socioeconomic groups and those over 65 were least likely to be aware of new technologies such as the hybrid closed loop systems, what plans do HMG and NHSE have to raise awareness of the latest technol…
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
26 June 2025
9 contributions
NHS and Social Care: Joint Working
I thank my noble friend for that positive reply. Does she agree that one of the main barriers to integration between health and social care is the lack of knowledge of the skills and experience of other professionals? Should the importance of integration therefore be included in initial clinical tra…
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her previous very positive answers, but one of the biggest barriers to working together is different terms and conditions for care and health workers: in particular, the lack of pay for care workers who have to go between different visits in rural areas and have si…
+7 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
25 June 2025
8 contributions
NHS: Private Equity
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer. Following Care REIT falling into foreign hands, the board of Assura was happy to sell out to KKR, risking an uncertain future for GP surgeries serving millions of people, rather than ensuring continued UK ownership to support NHS current and future infr…
My Lords, given that there are a vast number of overseas investments in different areas of private medicine in London—for example, in vitro fertilisation, much surgery, and so on—can the Minister tell us whether there is any fundamental difference between this and Assura healthcare? Providing it is …
+6 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
25 June 2025
7 contributions
Perinatal Mental Health
I thank my noble friend the Minister for her reply and declare my interest as chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance. It is heartening to hear the Government’s assessment that there have not been any real terms cuts to perinatal mental health services this year. That is in spite of evidence fr…
My Lords, I declare an interest as CEO of Muslim Women’s Network UK. We conducted maternity research in 2022 and found that there is a lack of awareness in some minority ethnic communities that women can suffer from poor mental health during and after pregnancy, which results in the situation that, …
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
18 June 2025
8 contributions
Care Workers: Foreign Worker Visas
I thank the Minister for her Answer and apologise if it feels like Groundhog Day, because I know she answered a very similar Question from the noble Lord, Lord Wood, on Monday. As the Minister well knows, solving the recruitment and retention crisis in this sector is long term, will take cross-party…
Oh!
+6 more contributions in this session
Lords
Committee Stage
17 June 2025
7 contributions
Human Medicines (Amendments Relating to Hub and Spoke Dispensing etc.) Regulations 2025
My Lords, as I know we all acknowledge, community pharmacies play a vital role in our healthcare system by ensuring that patients have access to medicines and acting as an easily accessible “front door” to the NHS. They dispense around 1.1 billion NHS medicines every single year.
Traditionally, all…
My Lords, I broadly support these regulations. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will not mind my intervening briefly to ask a couple of questions; I have no wish to detain the Committee.
Obviously, I understand that community pharmacies have been playing an increasingly expanded clinical ro…
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Committee Stage
17 June 2025
7 contributions
Medical Devices and Blood Safety and Quality (Fees Amendment) Regulations 2025
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to debate these regulations, which I think can fairly be described as routine. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency charges fees for most of its services and, to ensure continued cost recovery, updates its fees every two years. This regu…
My Lords, I thank the Minister for outlining the purpose of these regulations so eloquently and succinctly. It is clear that the change to the fee structure for regulating medical devices and medical products is part of a realm of profound importance both to public health and to the future of health…
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
17 June 2025
8 contributions
Learning Disabilities Nursing
I thank the Minister. The Darzi report highlighted that people with learning disabilities have greater health inequalities than the general population and are four times more likely to die from treatable causes. The Mencap campaign Nurses Not Hearses confirmed that services where there are learning …
My Lords, will the Government undertake to ensure that in their workforce plan the training of undergraduate nurses in all courses, and for undergraduate medics and allied health professions, includes training on managing a situation where people have degrees of impaired mental capacity, and that ju…
+6 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
16 June 2025
7 contributions
Adult Social Care
I thank my noble friend for that Answer. I draw the House’s attention to my interests in the register. Social care workers do an extraordinary job, including with my own mother, but there are huge skills shortages in this sector, estimated at over 130,000 at present. Partly as a result of that, the …
My Lords, can the Minister go a bit further on that very helpful reply? Taking into account the range and nature of the personal care that these social care staff provide daily, is it not time that we got on urgently to professionalise the service, to make sure that they all get the proper training …
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
12 June 2025
Cardiovascular Illnesses
My Lords, I associate myself with the congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Booth, on securing such an important debate. I am very grateful to him for doing that on the back of his personal experience. It shines a light and, while I realise that it is difficult, what he has done is worthwhile. Man…
Lords
Debate
6 June 2025
2 contributions
Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill [HL]
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for tabling this Private Member’s Bill and my noble friend Lady Thornton for tabling an amendment. I very much appreciate the contributions made by a number of noble Lords.
The stated main purpose of the Bill is to impose a legal duty on the Secretary …
As I said, we are developing work with the OSR. As with all ways of developing work, that means working in a way that will get us to the place we wish to get to. I do not quite recognise the latter way forward that the noble Lord referred to, but I will be happy to write him further on this matter.
…
Lords
Proceedings
6 June 2025
Preterm Birth Committee Report
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. We often say, “This has been a good debate”. This has not been a good debate—it has been a brilliant debate. All the speakers showed a passion for making the service for mothers and babies better. I heard no political issues in any of the speeches. I …
Lords
Debate
5 June 2025
2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I start by acknowledging and associating myself with the very warm words about the value of care workers on whom we rely so much. The challenges are immense, as we have heard many times and not just in this debate—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that it is an important as well as a…
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate on Amendment 200A. I certainly can assure the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, that I am listening very closely. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for tabling this amendment, which would require social care providers to …
Lords
Oral Questions
5 June 2025
7 contributions
Creon
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer, but there are some suggestions that pharmacies are struggling to obtain this important medication, which addresses pancreatic enzyme therapy. Given the struggles that pharmacies are facing, could my noble friend the Minister therefore o…
My Lords, we know that these unexpected shortages occur from time to time, and that this obviously causes patients to worry. As the Minister said, I understand the advice is that alternative therapies are available but may not be sufficient for all patients. Given this, can the Government reassure p…
+5 more contributions in this session