Health

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I wish to raise the issue of neuroblastoma. I do so as someone who is proud of this Government’s record on the health service and who strongly supports their introduction of the cancer drugs fund.

Neuroblastoma is an aggressive childhood cancer affecting about 100 new children in the UK each year. It is the most common cancer diagnosed in infancy and is responsible for 15% of cancer deaths in children. There are very few treatments available in the United Kingdom for children with high-risk neuroblastoma, particularly those who have relapsed, and they have to travel abroad for treatment, generally to Germany or the USA.

I had never heard of neuroblastoma before my constituent, Mr John Macglashan of Dunstable, came to see me in March this year. His two-year-old daughter Lilly has stage 4 neuroblastoma. The Neuroblastoma Alliance, along with the people of Dunstable and the surrounding area with the help of The Dunstable Gazette, have helped to raise funds to send Lilly for treatment in America. The whole family is going through an enormous ordeal, and I want to relay their experiences to the House, and make four suggestions to the Minister as to how the UK can improve the provision of treatment for children with neuroblastoma.

First, I know that the Government want high-quality treatment for children with neuroblastoma to be available in the United Kingdom, and I strongly support that. To that end, the Government are participating in a European collaborative research network on neuroblastoma through the Société Internationale d’Oncologie Pédiatrique en Europe. That European trial does not appear to adhere to UK ethical standards of offering the best treatment available as a baseline for all children meeting the eligibility criteria. I urge the Minister to make sure that the best treatment available is offered as a baseline for all children in the United Kingdom.

My second concern is that clinical trials in the UK are taking far too long to begin. In March 2010, the Department of Health agreed to commence a new trial to give monoclonal antibody therapy to all children who might benefit from it, but according to the Neuroblastoma Alliance, that has not yet begun. The Government should ensure that this trial commences as quickly as possible.

Thirdly, it is important that the Government ensure that there is a standard procedure for allocating funds for treatment abroad across all primary care trust areas. That is particularly important as there are currently no NICE guidelines on the subject, which remains important while there is no viable treatment available in the UK. My constituent Mr Macglashan has taken his daughter Lilly to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering cancer centre in New York at considerable personal expense and with huge funds raised by the Neuroblastoma Alliance, a charity that campaigns for children with the condition. Mr Macglashan tells me that in the same hospital there are children from Norway, France, Spain, Italy and Greece, all of whom are being funded by their national health services while his family has had to rely on charity.

Fourthly, it is important that the best treatment options from abroad, whether from Germany or the USA, should be examined and, where the clinical evidence supports the case, introduced into the United Kingdom as quickly as possible. At the moment, there are too few options available for high-risk neuroblastoma children who fail to achieve a lasting remission after front-line treatment. In the UK, parents see a system that gives up on their children too soon while there should still be hope. Much higher numbers of children are surviving for much longer with the American treatment, and some are achieving permanent remission following treatment at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering cancer centre in New York. We need to make sure that that level of expertise is available here in the United Kingdom.

This is not simply a call for even greater NHS spending than the Government are currently budgeting for, as the costs of prolonged chemotherapy and radiotherapy in the UK are not cheap and have been shown to have less success than the treatments provided in America. It appears that the UK is not spending its health budget as effectively as it could in this regard, and I ask the Government to look again at the issue. The NHS already sends children suffering from cancer for treatment in America—for proton radiation treatment, for example—so no precedent would be set by sending more children for treatment in America and Germany.

Finally, I ask the Government to look at the training of consultants in neuroblastoma, as there are too few who specialise in this area.