NHS: Cancer Treatments

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (Lab)]

My Lords, I join other noble Members of this House in thanking sincerely Tessa, my noble friend Lady Jowell, for this debate. Rightly, people have talked about her courage. Those of us who know her know that she has had that for years. As a politician in the other place she would dare to tread where others would not even think of. I was pleased that the Sure Start scheme was mentioned, because it really is a legacy given to this country that has helped young children. So we are privileged today not only to have this debate but to have my noble friend Lady Jowell introduce it and speak from her personal experience.

I need to declare an interest: I am a trustee of University College hospitals foundation trust and was on the group that initiated what is now the Macmillan Cancer Centre, near the hospital. It took a lot of fundraising, but, linked with the hospital, we now have the proton beam therapy machine coming online, but it will not be until 2020. A proton beam therapy machine will come online at Christie’s in Manchester later this year. That is going to help. Since 2008, 400 of our young children have had to go abroad for treatment for cancer, because we have just not had the facilities in this country. Yet we are very good at making breakthroughs—the research, the innovation and all the rest of it. What goes wrong between that and touching the individual with cancer who needs help?

When we started that scheme, the statistics showed that one in three of us would suffer cancer during our lives. I gather that it is now one in two. It is a national challenge for us. As the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, rightly said, it is not an easy one; it is quite difficult.

At the moment, we are trying to raise—it is almost peanuts—£0.75 million to buy a photodynamic therapy machine. In lung cancer, 60% of those who have pre-cancerous lesions in the lung go on to have cancer which is difficult, and in many cases impossible, to deal with. We are trying to raise the money to do that, and it is right that we should. As my noble friend said, it is not just about National Health Service money; it is about somehow bringing together everything we can to fight what is the scourge of the world today. It is not just in Britain; it is an international situation. Somehow, we have to get the researchers, the clinicians and all the profession together to make sure that we can deliver what my noble friend has said. Her arguments are unanswerable. I hope that the Minister does not just give us a list of what the Government are doing now; we want to know what they are going to do to respond to this important debate.