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Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for securing this debate and for his dedication on this issue. I declare an interest as a governor of the Royal Berkshire hospital. I also have a family member who has shares in a medical company.
Radiotherapy access suffers from geographical constraints, and this issue cannot be solved until the significant workforce challenge is addressed alongside it. The Royal College of Radiologists states that in England the NHS faces a 30% shortfall in radiologists. That figure is projected to rise to 40% by 2028, yet more than a fifth of NHS trusts have implemented recruitment freezes. Shortfalls in recruitment mean that consultants, faced with burnout and impossible workloads, retire earlier. That is made especially clear as the average age of retirement is just 54.
The Royal College of Radiologists highlights the absurd situation whereby newly trained consultants may struggle to find jobs, forcing invaluable radiologists and oncologists to go for locum jobs, move abroad or leave the healthcare sector altogether at a time when their skills are best placed in our NHS to fix our cancer care crisis—a crisis in which not a single integrated care board is currently meeting its cancer waiting time standards.
The impact of the recruitment freezes on patients is tangible and is not limited to radiotherapy. Some 80% of patient pathways in the NHS are reliant on radiology. Delays in scan reporting result in delayed treatment. Delayed treatment results in worse outcomes. Worse outcomes may be the deciding factor in whether someone fails to recover.
How will the Government ensure that when my Wokingham constituents visit the Royal Berkshire hospital, the oncology and screening departments are fully staffed? Can the Minister explain his understanding of the recruitment freezes that are taking place across NHS trusts? I am aware that the Minister has a very, very busy diary: he told me so earlier today in the main Chamber.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Andrew Gwynne)
I suspect that my diary will be a little busier with the two requests from the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).
Clive Jones
The Minister’s diary will be a little busy, but I am sure it can cope. I ask him to meet me and representatives of the Royal College of Radiologists to discuss the Government’s plan for workforce reform.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Andrew Gwynne)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for bringing this important debate to Parliament on World Cancer Day, and other Members for their contributions on this really important topic. I am happy to meet the hon. Member and his colleagues from the all-party parliamentary group on radiotherapy to discuss these issues further. I suspect that my diary is going to get busier, but I am more than happy to meet the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) as well, to ensure that we get this aspect of the national cancer plan absolutely right.
To answer one of the questions put by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), the national cancer plan will include radiotherapy—it would be odd if it did not, given the importance of radiotherapy—and I will work with Radiotherapy UK and others with an interest in this area. That is partly why we have launched our call for evidence today: to get the views and opinions of as many people and organisations as possible, so that we get the plan right. It has to be fit not just for 2025, but for 2035 and the years in between, so there is a lot of work to be done.
We know that cancer patients are waiting too long for treatment. That is why we are taking immediate action to kick-start the recovery of the NHS with a commitment to cut waiting times that will benefit all, including those with cancer. In our 10-year plan for the NHS, we committed to return our national health service to constitutional standards, including on cancer.
By investing in our workforce, a point made by several hon. Members, and allocating £70 million for new radiotherapy machines, we will reduce cancer waiting times and give more patients access to state-of-the-art treatments. Fixing the NHS also requires reform. This year, we will publish our 10-year health plan to help build a health service fit for the future and, as I have already mentioned, we are today announcing the launch of a call for evidence for a dedicated national cancer plan, another step towards unleashing our country’s potential as a world leader in saving lives from this deadly disease. I encourage everyone to have their say by responding to the national cancer plan call for evidence.
I assure hon. Members that the priority of this Government is to ensure that radiotherapy is available quickly to those who need it. Radiotherapy is a crucial treatment for many cancer patients, as it can shrink tumours very effectively. Although the vast majority of the population are located within reasonable distance of where they would go for treatment, I am very aware that that is not always the case, particularly in rural communities.
I can give a family example. My dad, who sadly died two years ago from a very rare and aggressive form of rectal cancer, benefited from superb treatment at the Christie in Manchester, which is our local cancer hospital. He had chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiotherapy. The radiotherapy shrank his tumours, and that almost certainly gave him an extra two years of quality life with his family, including his great-grandson. I will forever be grateful that he received that.
One day, though, we took him to the Christie and he got chatting to somebody who was also receiving radiotherapy. This is pertinent to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), who leads on these matters for the Liberal Democrats, because this person was from Shropshire. My dad is Salopian born—he was born in Shrewsbury and brought up in High Ercall, before being dragged to Manchester in the 1950s when my grandad got a job as the chief accountant at Manchester education committee—and they got talking. “You’re really from Shropshire and you’re coming to Manchester for radiotherapy?” It was the nearest place that had that treatment available at that time. It really hit me then how sporadic these things are, and how some people have to travel unacceptably long distances. We need to make sure that in our national cancer plan, we look at the deserts and the accessibility issues.
Tim Farron
I would not be doing my job at all well if I did not pursue the Minister on this point. Earlier, he very kindly talked about meeting the all-party group to talk about the national picture, and I want to press him on our local bid to tackle the problem he has just spoken about. Will he meet me and local oncologists to talk about how we can deliver a radiotherapy satellite centre in Kendal?
Andrew Gwynne
I was just coming to that—the hon. Gentleman has obviously started to read my notes from a distance. I am aware that he met representatives of the previous Government to discuss the possibility of a satellite unit in his local area. The situation is the same now as it was then: it is the responsibility of the integrated care board, but if the hon. Gentleman thinks it would be helpful for us to have a meeting and see if we can push that case, my door is open. I absolutely recognise that people in that part of Cumbria would prefer to have those services closer to where they live. If we can impress that on his local ICB, let us see if we can make progress.
The Government aim to ensure that each treatment centre is accessible to the highest possible number of patients, as well as easily reached by the staff who work there. That is another consideration—it is not just the patients who have to physically get to these units, but the staff. We recognise that for those in rural communities, machinery may not be available at their local hospital, meaning that the only option is travel to specialist centres to receive the best possible care. Radiotherapy service provision is agreed by local systems, and each patient’s care needs and treatment location are decided on a case-by-case basis by their clinicians. We are giving local systems greater flexibility and control, as they are best placed to understand and meet the needs of their communities, but to drive the national cancer plan forward, we have to tackle this postcode lottery and the deserts head-on.
Accessibility is also about making sure that we have the right workforce available to deliver the treatment in the right places and at the right time. That is why the number of training places has increased, and it is why we are improving the quality of education for assistant practitioners, diagnostics and therapeutic radiographers. NHS England is also working to improve the retention of radiographers and radiologists through initiatives such as increasing investment in career development. By ensuring our workforce feels supported, we put ourselves in a better position to deliver the care that people need.
Turning to investment in machines, I agree with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale that we should be ambitious in our plans to ensure that patients are treated as quickly as possible. Lord Darzi’s report highlighted the scale of the challenge we face: under the previous Government, waiting times for treatment increased, and more than 30% of patients waited longer than 31 days for radical radiotherapy.
In response to Lord Darzi’s findings, we have taken urgent action to get the NHS back on its feet. At the recent Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor supported our commitment to end the backlogs by announcing £70 million of investment in new radiotherapy machines in 2025-26. Replacing older radiotherapy machines with newer, more efficient and more technically advanced ones will ensure that patients can be seen more quickly. By doing so, we will improve access and speed up cancer treatment. Making more advanced machines available means that patients will have fewer trips to receive their treatment.
Hon. Members may be aware that NHS England has now allocated funding to trusts across the country to purchase the new radiotherapy machines with the £70 million investment. NHS England invited trusts to express interest in receiving funding to purchase a new machine. Allocation criteria focused on the age of the machine being replaced, the proportion of older machines in use in the trust and the trust’s performance on radiotherapy. We expect to fund at least 27 new machines, which should be available to treat patients by spring 2026.
Those steps will ensure that we can improve cancer waiting times as soon as possible, helping us to put an end to the last Government’s neglect and underinvestment. I reassure the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, and other hon. Members, that we will continue to make the case for additional funding, so that we can continue to upgrade machines and push the advances of the latest technological developments, for the benefit of patients with cancer.
I turn to the national cancer plan. Beyond immediate actions, we know that bold reform is required to rise to the growing challenge that cancers of all types represent. Lord Darzi found that cancer survival in this country is worse than in comparable countries, and that improvement slowed greatly during the 2010s. To help us to develop more targeted actions, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has announced the development of a national cancer plan, which was the subject of the statement I gave in the House just a few hours ago. The overarching aim of the plan is to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer. It will detail how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, ensuring that patients have access to the most effective treatments and technology, including radiotherapy.
Today, we launched our national cancer plan call for evidence. We welcome views from all hon. and right hon. Members, as well as from clinicians, patients and their families—it is critical that we get the views of people who have lived experience of accessing cancer care—charities, researchers, members of the public and, of course, the excellent all-party parliamentary groups that champion cancer treatment and outcomes in this House.
In closing, I thank the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale for bringing this crucial matter to the House. I thank hon. Members, whose contributions have, in the spirit of this year’s World Cancer Day, put places and people at the centre of care. I am pleased to assure hon. Members that we are undertaking both immediate actions and bold reforms to improve access to radiotherapy. There is a lot more that we need to do, and we will do it in partnership. This work is part of our effort to rebuild the NHS and deliver world-class cancer services for everybody—something that will always be a top priority for this Government and that is personal for me—so let’s get on and achieve it.