Health Bill [HL]

I have been in this House for almost 10 years. One thing that I learnt fairly early on is that the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, is one of the great free spirits of this House and one Member who not only thinks and speaks for himself but causes some of the rest of us to sit back and think in ways that we had not anticipated. I say that in all sincerity. I have listened to the noble Lord on previous occasions when he has moved similar amendments and I have a great deal of sympathy with what he is trying to do. Those of us who sit through most of the debates in your Lordships’ House know that medicines management and the waste of medicines in the NHS have a particular resonance with the public. We know, too, that many people on low incomes are put off seeking and taking treatment by the disproportionate cost to them of prescriptions. I do not want to make a general speech on prescriptions policy, because now is not the time for that, but my money is on the Minister coming back and explaining to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, that even the same drug prescribed in a different place and at a different time may have a different cost depending on the method of purchasing it. A PCT may have a bulk discount and so on. Therefore, that is quite difficult, as is isolating the cost of a drug from the treatment. However, I am enormously sympathetic to the noble Lord’s desire to get through to the general public an appreciation not just of the cost of medicines but of how they themselves can be responsible about medicines. Therefore, I suggest to the noble Lord that he moves his idea in a slightly different direction by looking at the prescription forms and the general messages about the cost of medicines, together with ways in which the general public can access information about managing medicines more efficiently themselves in discussion with their clinicians. That might be one way of moving nearer to what the noble Lord is trying to achieve, which I think is entirely laudable.