Lord WINSTANLEYMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they accept the current medical view that the use of glass and metal hypodermic syringes, which require sterilisation on each occasion before use, is no longer acceptable for patients requiring regular injections; and whether they will, therefore, arrange for the provision of disposable syringes and needles, on NHS Prescription Form FP10, to patients suffering from diabetes.
§ The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of HEALTH and SOCIAL SECURITY (Lord Wells-Pestell)My Lords, when a patient has a glass and metal syringe for his personal use, and in using it follows good hygienic practice, the syringe does not require sterilisation each time an injection is administered. Her Majesty's Government do not therefore accept the view that these syringes are no longer medically acceptable for patients requiring regular injections. Accordingly, they do not think they would be justified at present in diverting from other National Health Service priorities the additional expenditure that would be required to provide disposable syringes and needles on prescription for diabetic patients.
Lord WINSTANLEYMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that Answer, so far as it goes, but would he not accept that patients with diabetes—and perhaps more particularly the parents of children with diabetes—already have 1388 very heavy burdens to bear? If general practitioners, consultants and others play their part, it is accepted that they can get disposable syringes and needles by a circuitous route. But would it not be easier to allow people to have these syringes by means of the ordinary general practitioner prescription forms and thus save all the administrative costs? Can the noble Lord say what cost would be involved if this simple measure were adopted?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I accept that the estimated net additional cost of providing disposable syringes and needles for all diabetic patients in England would be at least £6 million per annum for syringes and £3.3 million for needles, a total of well over £9 million. Having said that, and having regard to what I said earlier, the Government do not feel justified in taking that amount of money out of the National Health Service, an amount which could be used for other purposes and priorities. They remain quite unconvinced that it would serve a useful purpose.
§ Viscount HANWORTHMy Lords, would the Minister agree that, in the circumstances which we are considering, to keep a hypodermic syringe in methylated spirits is all that is required to provide a great degree of safety?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right.