Cervical Cancer Screening

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and John Baron

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) on securing the debate. Needless to say, all our thoughts go out to Sophie’s family and friends at this time of loss.

The hon. Gentleman rightly focused on the importance of early diagnosis, which is crucial with not just cervical cancer but cancer in general. I hope, in a relatively brief speech, to remind the House of the importance of the figures that the Government are due to publish soon—one-year cancer survival rates broken down by clinical commissioning group. I and fellow Members of the all-party group on cancer believe that those figures could have a transformative effect in encouraging earlier diagnosis, thereby saving literally thousands of lives.

The recent period has been interesting, because we have had both good news and bad news on cancer. The good news is that, as Cancer Research UK announced only a few days ago, 50% of those diagnosed with cancer now are likely to make it to 10 years following diagnosis, which is twice the survival rate that existed back in the 1970s. That is extremely positive. The bad news is that in this country, shamefully, one in four cancers are still first diagnosed as late as when somebody goes to A and E. It is of further shame that figures suggest that if we were to match European averages for cancer survival rates—just the averages—we could save an additional 5,000 lives a year. If we believe the OECD’s figures, if we were to match international averages—again, just the averages—we could save up to 10,000 lives a year. That shows clearly that we have a long way to go and that early diagnosis is crucial. The all-party group describes it as cancer’s magic key. There are very few magic keys in life, with which we can open the door and find that there is suddenly a plethora of riches in front of us, but a magic key does exist for cancer, and it is early diagnosis.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is huge regional variation in cancer survival rates? In areas such as the one that I represent, where we have high levels of poverty and deprivation, survival rates are a lot worse than elsewhere, so we have massive challenges before us.

[Mr Baron]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point, which leads me neatly on to the report that the all-party group produced back in 2009 on reducing cancer inequalities—I should perhaps declare an interest as the chairman of the group. The report, which was extensive and took in much written and oral evidence, found that this country’s health care system stood as much chance as any other of getting patients from the one-year point to the five-year point after diagnosis. However, where we fell down was on getting them to the one-year point in the first place. That suggests that the NHS is as good as any other health care system at treating cancer once it is detected, but very poor at detecting it. That underperformance in diagnosing cancer means that we trail other health care systems. We never catch up from that original loss.

Comparisons are always dangerous. When we compare our system with that in France, for example, we are comparing it with centres of excellence, so we have to be careful in our comparisons. However, the figures of 5,000 lives a year that could be saved if we matched European averages and 10,000 that could be saved if we met international averages are generally accepted. They can largely be accounted for by the early phase, when we fail to pick up cancer early enough and so do not get enough people to the one-year point after diagnosis.

The all-party group therefore decided to ask how we could focus the NHS on earlier diagnosis. We have been laser-like and dogged in our campaign on that front.