Health: Cancer

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I do agree with that point, and indeed it was one of the policies announced by the Prime Minister in October. Of course we need to make more progress on early diagnosis. One-year survival rates have improved in the past 10 years but we still lag behind our continental neighbours, as we have done for decades. The noble Lord mentioned GP referrals, which have been in the news this week. The threshold for referrals from GPs to specialist cancer doctors has been reduced in line with the NICE guideline. The consequence has been that in the past seven years, the number of people referred to a specialist cancer doctor has increased by 1 million—that is, an increase of 115%. Therefore, we are seeing more referrals at an early stage. We are seeing many more appointments and of course those will feed through over time into our survival figures.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, what is the Government’s estimate of the funding needed for better radiological equipment; to train radiographers to be able to report, given the shortage of radiologists; to develop AI, given that the diagnosis of malignant melanoma using AI has been shown to be as accurate as diagnosis by a dermatologist; and to invest in pathology services? Without quantifying the amount and making sure that NHS England and CCGs sign up to these things, I worry that our diagnostic facilities will never catch up with those of other countries.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness pinpoints some really important issues that we need to deal with. The good news is that the number of radiographers has increased by 3,500 in the last eight years, but of course we need to do more and the cancer workforce plan includes plans to recruit more specialists. Greater investment in equipment is taking place, the Prime Minister has announced investment in specialist cancer centres, and the first proton beam therapy centres in this country have now opened. Finally, AI has extraordinary benefits. It is now able to diagnose some tumours better than most expert specialists. We have made some commitments in this area through the expansion of digital pathology and radiology, and we will be doing more.