Health: Cancer

Debate between Lord Aberdare and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Thursday 29th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I absolutely recognise that it is a problem. As I said, we have increased the numbers of doctors in a range of specialties. Pathology has been a challenge, it must be said. There are two answers: the first is to continue to recruit more people, either domestically or internationally. The second refers to the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, made: we are determined to utterly transform this service through technology while also delivering better results.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers. One in four sufferers survives for less than a month after diagnosis, and only 7% survive for five years. What is more, the outcomes have hardly improved in the last 40 years. Will the Minister join me in welcoming the Demand Faster Treatment campaign led by Pancreatic Cancer UK, whose ambition is that by 2024 people with pancreatic cancer will be treated within 20 days of diagnosis? Will he assure the House that the Government will play a leading part in helping to achieve that goal? I declare my interest as an officer of the Pancreatic Cancer All-Party Group.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Lord is quite right. We have seen incredible improvements in outcomes for some cancers, whereas others, pancreatic cancer among them just, have not seen improved survival rates. We need to do a lot more, and part of that is early diagnosis. I understand that while pancreatic cancer becomes symptomatic in the last six months of a person’s life, it can be in the body for up to 14 years, so making that early diagnosis and using new technology such as liquid biopsies will help us achieve that noble goal.