Health Bill

I support the amendment put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. Across a whole range of NHS services, there is a growing body of evidence to show the efficacy of domiciliary-based services. To draw a parallel, an organisation with which I am involved is part of a service providing domiciliary dentistry—““Teeth on Wheels””. It has been evaluated by a unit from the London School of Economics to show the value not just of ensuring that older people have teeth and dentures, but also the knock-on effect to their general health. The same applies to eyesight. The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, talked about falls. It is already on record that a significant proportion of falls are due to people tripping in their homes because they do not see properly. The cost to the NHS of not doing that probably shows up in other NHS budgets and is therefore not detected, but it is possible to track it through and show that domiciliary services save the NHS a great deal of money and are therefore cost-effective.