What’s on : Lectures

Decisions, Decisions! Science, Budgets and Bother: VCJD and blood; Viagra; MMR and autism

Lectures
Date
1 Nov 2016
Start time
7:30 PM
Venue
Tempest Anderson Hall
Speaker
Frank Dobson
Decisions, Decisions!  Science, Budgets and Bother: VCJD and blood; Viagra; MMR and autism

Event Information

Decisions, Decisions!  Science, Budgets and Bother: VCJD and blood; Viagra; MMR and autism

Frank Dobson, Secretary of State for Health, May 1997 to Oct 1999

In this lecture, Frank Dobson, Health Secretary June ’97 to October ’99, will draw back the veil on decisions involving the Prime Minister, Chancellor, other ministers, medical and scientific advisors, drug companies and patient groups in the face of funding problems and conflicting official advice.

His presentation will include how the Meningitis C vaccination scheme was brought forward a year despite ‘nothing in the budget’.  How proposals that Hull/York and other new medical schools should be ‘cut-price’ institutions were resisted.  How his £100 million decision to leucodeplete the blood supply to protect from vCJD, recently described as ‘prescient’, was taken against prevailing scientific views.  Why the response to the false claim that MMR caused autism was neither prompt nor effective.  Why it was necessary to resist Viagra on the NHS.  How, despite personal reservations, he agreed the highly successful concentration of children’s intensive care in specialist units, including Leeds Infirmary.  How NHS Direct was first launched in just 3 pilot schemes.

Mr Dobson regards setting up the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) as his most far-reaching decision and emphasizes the contribution of work at the University of York to its success.

Member’s report

Frank Dobson gave fascinating insights into decision making at the heart of government. When variant CJD appeared, he prudently authorised the expensive purification of blood used in transfusions to great effect. Conversely, he limited NHS prescription costs for Viagra to patients with prostate cancer etc. The meningitis C vaccine was developed before funding was budgeted; he overcame Civil Service opposition and immediately made the vaccine available to priority groups. He stopped the Treasury from reducing training level for additional medical students. Despite personal qualms, he concentrated children’s intensive care to just a few hospitals, giving much higher survival rates and quality of life. His greatest achievement against vested interests was to establish NICE, now generally accepted as best practice.

Rod Leonard