Health Bill [HL]

I add my note of scepticism to the notion of innovation prizes. I particularly want to ask the Minister about the timeframe. Major health innovations are often developed over many years. As regards the award of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, physics and medicine, over 10 or 15 years an innovation becomes gradually understood as constituting a fundamental change. An obvious example of that was the award of the Nobel Prize to Peter Mansfield for his MRI innovation, which has transformed the whole of imaging over the past 20 years. However, during the 20 years before he made the discovery for which he got the prize, he slogged away in a laboratory in Nottingham with nobody taking much notice of him at all. Is Peter Mansfield eligible for one of these innovation prizes? I hope so. Many innovations in medicine have been actively opposed by colleagues in the NHS; for example, in my own field, the newer anti-psychotic medications have made a fantastic difference to a certain group of seriously ill psychotic people who were resistant to the old drugs. However, because they were so much more expensive, for many years there was massive resistance in mental health services to their being prescribed. Are people going to apply for these prizes? I am trying to imagine myself as a consultant and my team applying for one. How much would the prize money be? Would it be enough to help us develop the service? Alternatively, would the prize be for me or one of my staff as an individual or for the whole team? I do not really understand how it is to work. However, I am interested in the timeframe. Like the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I have great difficulty in conceiving how the money attached to these prizes would be an advantage over the kudos that you are likely to experience within your peer group—your professional colleagues—as some years down the line your innovation gains recognition as a major contribution. The timeframe will be an important element in terms of changing services, and I am sceptical about whether a proposal for specific prizes can really change the culture of the NHS, although again I am not against the award of prizes for various other things.