My Lords, I hesitate before speaking about this amendment because I do not profess any particular knowledge of this area. I have not participated before on the Bill because I have been ensconced in dealing with the delights of HS2, but I have a couple of points to make. I am certainly sympathetic to the amendment, but something the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said worried me. She said that even without the Bill, action is being taken. That does not mean that we do not need the Bill.
My first point is that it took quite a while for this to be exposed. It took the campaign from the Times to bring this to the forefront. Surely one of the questions we ought to be asking is why this was not exposed through the audit processes of the NHS in the first place. These were not small increases: they were staggering. One epilepsy drug that started off for a few pounds went up to something like £67. They were staggering increases—so that is one question for the Minister.
There are clearly differences of opinion about how effective the Bill is at getting the balance right, and that will be tricky. I can understand that listening to the arguments today. Nobody wants to stop the innovative, essential approach of successful British drug companies. That is on one side. But on the other, we have to ensure that the health service and the cost of drugs are protected.
A letter to the Times on Saturday caught my attention. It talked about the importance of clinical pharmacology and focused on the safe, effective and economic use of medicines. A recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers stated:
“Each £1 spent to hire additional clinical pharmacologists has the potential to reduce NHS costs by almost £6”.
Apparently, there are only 72 clinical pharmacologist consultants working in the NHS. The British Pharmacological Society recommends that it needs a total of 150 by 2025. Without urgent action, therefore, the impact of waste is set to increase, and that surely ought to give us cause for alarm. Again, I am only giving notice to the Minister; he might not be able to give me all the answers to these questions.
3.45 pm
Controlling the cost of drugs and trying to ensure that new drugs are available to patients is obviously key. However, we are still in a situation in which there is a vast degree of overprescribing. We still face the
serious challenge of antibiotics being overprescribed. I would welcome, in the Minister’s response, an assurance that, in the round, some of these issues are going to be addressed. It seems that they are all a key part of solving the problem and ensuring that we have an effective drugs policy inside the NHS that is doing two things: encouraging the innovation of new drugs within British companies and ensuring the effective use of these drugs. There is such variation across different trusts, so looking at best practice and where we are getting good value for money is also a key part of the equation. I hope that these points have been of some value.