§ Mr. Kilroy-Silkasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if it is her policy to permit general practitioners within the National Health Service to perform trials of drugs on patients without first having their methods approved by an ethical committee, as in the case with hospital doctors; (2) if it is her policy to permit general practitioners in the National Health Service to receive payment from drug companies for giving trial drugs to their patients; (3) if she will seek to ascertain how many general practitioners in the National Health Service are giving trial drugs to their patients; how many patients are involved; and what money has been paid to doctors by drug companies in the last year for which figures are available; (4) if she will introduce legislation to provide that no trial drug shall be issued by a general practitioner to a patient without the consent of the patient; (5) if any investigation has taken place into the experiment with drugs on elderly patients as reported in the Clinical Trials Journal; (6) if she has conducted any investigation into whether patients' health or welfare has been harmed by the use of trial drugs by their general practitioners.
§ Mrs. CastleMy Department is looking into the problems referred to by my hon. Friend and I will write to him.