Clause 14
Health Bill [Lords]
12:00 pm
Stephen O'Brien (Shadow Minister, Health; Eddisbury, Conservative)
I think that the Minister has done extraordinarily well to get as far as this point in our proceedings before coming out with the first big soundbite: “from the bench to the bedside.”
We have had a helpful debate. Lying behind this innovation and prize process is clearly a model of being focused against an identified challenge. This is an inelegant analogy but, within the NHS, we have an equivalent to the Manhattan Project. On the prize, I can see that the Minister hopes that the leverage through the kudos will excite people to apply the research capacity to come up with a successful solution. It will be important that we retain the idea of this committee or panel of experts—although in recent days, the news coming out of Iran about the Council of Experts has been very unhelpful, not least as it involves the only thing that can put any constraints on the Supreme Leader. That said, the nub of this will be how the panel calls for ideas for challenges, from which it will, after a sifting process, come up with what will be put out there.
For what it is worth, arising from my work on malaria, I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that there is already a model that might be effective for the new committee: the Medicines for Malaria Venture, which is based in Geneva and partly funded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It works well by taking ideas from various sources that might be able to come up with innovative solutions to combat malaria. It has done a tremendous job and, through the sift, has identified where the effort needs to be made. That model is probably worth looking at.
Following a discussion that is useful to have on record, especially as the committee sets about its work, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.