My Lords, I take this opportunity to thank my noble friend for listening and acting in the terms set out in the amendments in this group, which I support on research as far as they go. I have to express my disappointment that my noble friend has not seen fit to extend his bonhomie to NICE. I have therefore tabled Amendment 29, and I am delighted to have the support of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Patel. As set out by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, our thoughts are with the noble Lord, Lord Patel, who is unable to be with us today, and we wish him the speediest possible recovery. It is a great shame that he cannot be here today because we would all wish to pay tribute to his work historically as the forerunner of NICE. We are grateful to him for it. It is a great disappointment to me that he is not able to be here in person.
I also support Amendments 171 and 178 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, but I shall leave the noble Lord to set them out.
My noble friend has set out that the government amendments set a responsibility on integrated care boards to respond annually and to measure the research work that they have done. Quite frankly, I am a little concerned and gobsmacked as to why my noble friend is not insisting that integrated care boards do the same as regards NICE. The key provision of my Amendment 29 is:
“Within 28 days of any medicine or device receiving market authorisation from NICE, an integrated care board must update its formulary to include that medicine or device.”
I have set out other provisions, but the other one to which I draw attention is in proposed new subsection (3), which says that every year an individual ICB must report
“in a publicly accessible format”—
to me that would mean it being accessible on its website—
“all medicines and devices that have been added and removed from their formulary over the previous year and maintain an active list of all medicines and devices available on their formulary.”
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I would like to get away from what is an effective postcode lottery, meaning that where you live determines the medicine or device from which you can benefit. In this day and age, in the 21st century, it is unacceptable that, for all the good work that NICE does, we are still living in that capacity, whereby not everyone will be able to benefit, as pharmacists, physicians or patients, from the advice that NICE has given.
I am delighted to say that I am supported in this by a number of bodies, including the JDRF, which makes particular reference to the importance of NICE’s work on type 1 diabetes—and we know how invasive and extensive type 1 diabetes is. I pay tribute to our right honourable friend, the former Prime Minister Theresa May, who went public with the fact that she was a type 1 diabetes sufferer. For a woman in that position to go public about her condition captured the public imagination and made it more acceptable to say that people suffer from type 1 diabetes. EMIG, the ethical medicines association, also supports this provision, as does Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
I have only recently become aware of a project called the Orbis scheme, which aims to deliver faster regulatory approval of innovative cancer treatments. I think that all noble Lords would wish to support the speediest possible diagnosis and delivery of treatment that is in play through this project and scheme.
I end with a plea to my noble friend that the Government, MHRA, NICE and NHSE all work closely together, not just among themselves but with the industry and with all patient organisations and clinicians, to make swifter regulatory approval a reality, in keeping with the ambitious government life sciences vision, which I support.