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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lord Sandwich, who has done so much to raise awareness of the often unmet needs of people whose addiction originated in a legal prescription. There is some progress in training doctors—for example, in undergraduate medical education with a new national curriculum on substance misuse. This guidance provides learning objectives on rational prescribing and iatrogenic addiction. The fact that such a curriculum is only just being introduced shows the need for the attention of clinical commissioning groups to be brought to this issue. There seems to be a special responsibility on the National Health Service to provide better care for people affected by medical prescribing practice, and I hope that the Minister will be able to suggest how such a responsibility could be emphasised in the Bill.