Health Bill

Debate between Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick and Baroness Morgan of Drefelin

Committee stage
Monday 9th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a very important group of amendments, which touches on all the key areas in cancer concern, including: the focus on the mandate that we are losing; the question of how to promote research; waiting times, and how incredibly stressful long waiting times are for patients; the importance of early detection and the need for screening; the importance of integrating modern approaches, such as genomic testing and personalised medicine, into daily care; and, of course, radiotherapy and the challenges facing the radiotherapy community. I support the amendments and I have added my name to Amendments 41, 217 and 228, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon.

I will focus very quickly on Amendment 217 and talk a little bit about clinical trials. For me, clinical trials play an absolutely pivotal role in ensuring that outcomes for cancer patients have an upward trajectory in our new NHS. That remains central to me, and I would dearly love to hear from the Minister the reassurance that I think we need: that in following the transition, restructuring and so on, there will be an appropriate and dynamic focus on improving participation in clinical trials. Participation in clinical trials for cancer patients is falling. Although, following the O’Shaughnessy review, which was a huge wake-up call, the Government have taken important steps to tackle the amount of time it takes for clinical trials to be set up, and they have made great progress on commercial trials, we still need to do much more for academic clinical trials and those focusing on rarer cancers. That is my area of concern, and I would be grateful to hear something from the Minister on that.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has said a few times, structure needs to follow purpose. The cancer plan, the mandate from 2022 and the NHS 10-year plan are all phenomenally important commitments to improving outcomes for patients. However, if we have a hiatus because of a vacuum caused by restructuring the establishment of specialist commissioning in ICBs then are they really ready for this? Can we really be sure that all the amazing commitments in the cancer plan will be progressed further? That is really what I am looking for.

I do not think there is a lack of commitment at all on the part of the Government—the recent women’s health strategy is a great step forward—but we need to be realistic about the challenges that change creates in the system. It has taken years to develop the informal and formal ecosystem that promotes the research that we need to keep improving outcomes for patients up there on the agenda. Can the Minister please explain how we will ensure that there is a culture that really embeds the bench-to-bedside ethos that we know is so important to save lives from cancer, for rarer cancers, and for those patients experiencing cancer now but also in the future?

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I come to this debate as someone who is a breast cancer survivor of some eight years and who has been involved in a cancer trial—a double-blind aspirin trial. I do not know whether I was taking aspirin, but I will find out next year when the results of that trial will be revealed.

I am somebody who, from practice, firmly believes in cancer outcomes. I believe there needs to be concentration on cancer outcomes, on survival and on an expeditious way to ensure that patients have ready access, especially for rare cancers. Genomics is telling us so much about the type and the content of cancer tumours that we need to work at pace to ensure that those treatments and new treatments are available to deal with them. I have every confidence that the Government will be able to facilitate that, but the challenging issues are around radiotherapy times, and the intensification of radiotherapy and those treatments.

I remember, from my first diagnosis, being told that everybody’s tumour is different, even though you may have breast cancer, because that is the collective term. Therefore, the idea and the objective is to focus that treatment on the content of the tumour that you have, which is particular to you. Treatments are dedicated to the needs of patients; I would like to think that was continued as part of our Health Bill and of treating cancer patients generally.