Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, who has worked very closely in this field, should disturb all of us. It is a very late hour and I do not wish to detain the Committee any longer, except to say that one of the parts of the answer to this problem could be a much closer involvement of pharmacists in the whole issue of the drug regulation of individual patients. I know that my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones has raised before the question of how far qualified pharmacists can be brought more closely into very integrated working with CCGs. I simply suggest that this may be one of the ways to limit the terrible plight that the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, was talking about—an individual pharmacist related directly to somebody who was closely dependent on a drug regime and the misuse of that drug regime in a way that leads to addiction.