Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, from the outset the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and my noble friend Lady Williams have hit the button on this debate. Like the noble Lord, Lord Warner, I am a sceptic about nudge theories and think that they need to be investigated. I thought that the House of Lords committee under my noble friend—my former noble friend—the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, interrogated the issue extremely well. We are in an obesity crisis. We are expecting 50 per cent of adults to be obese by 2020 and I believe that we are going to have to do something rather more drastic than simply nudge people. Personally, I am quite attracted to the idea of a fat tax. Let us see the evidence of whether a nudge is going to prevent us from facing a major obesity crisis by 2020 that is even greater than the one that we already have, or whether a fat tax is the only way that we are going to get there. The spirit of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, is absolutely correct in that respect. Very ingeniously, the noble Lord has introduced the idea of patient control over their own records. I do not know whether this is the right place in the Bill to be debating this issue, but I do know that it is an extremely important suggestion. Patients should have control over their own records, which should not be simply under the control of the local GP. It is increasingly important for pharmacists to have sight of a patient’s records—with the consent of the patient; that is the essential control—and that other healthcare professionals should do so. There should not be a monopoly on the sight of patients’ records for general practitioners. With the consent of patients, other health professionals should be able to see them. We will then have proper integration of healthcare without expecting GPs to be the gatekeepers for all an individual’s healthcare needs. I do not know whether we are starting the debate that was referred to at Second Reading, but this is an important area which I hope will be discussed further during the course of the Bill.