Childhood Cancer Outcomes

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) on how she introduced this debate today. Many Members who have already spoken have become the voice for the voiceless in this debate. It is probably what Parliament should be for—to cry out for those who are most vulnerable, most needy and most deserving, yet do not have a voice.

Like many, I want to be the voice for one of my voiceless constituents today; I want to speak for Jake Oliver. Jake is four. He is currently in the haematology ward of the Royal Victoria Hospital for sick children, being looked after by some of the most magnificent staff in cancer services who deal with young people and children in particular.

Jake’s mum wrote to me, saying that she wanted me to speak in this debate because

“I honestly wouldn’t wish on any parent/family what we have been through in the past 19 months and continue to go through daily…Jake being so unwell and not getting a diagnosis quicker! 8 awful weeks before we knew he had cancer and at the age of 4. It breaks my heart to think my boy was so sick and didn’t know what was going on in his wee body…It took a further 6/7 days to stabilise him in hospital before we could begin biopsies….4 years old and he was basically being suffocated by a large mass surrounding his heart and lungs, cutting off his blood and air supply.”

I think we will hear many messages today from hospital beds and people’s homes about their little ones and how they need care. It is important that we recognise that every single effort has to be made to help these young people. Early diagnosis is clearly a key point.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

It strikes me that I have had a similar piece of correspondence from my constituents about their three-year-old son Alfie, who is undergoing treatment for leukaemia. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that awareness among GPs would go a long way to ensuring that these young people—my three-year-old constituent, and his four-year-old constituent—get treatment sooner that is perhaps less aggressive?

[Ian Paisley]

If Jake could speak today, he would say “Hear, hear!” to what the hon. Lady has just said, because early diagnosis has been key. As other hon. Members have said, waiting several months before the GP was able to get the child to A&E and then have them diagnosed is not appropriate. It is not the GP’s fault. More money has to be put into research. There has to be more awareness, more skills training and more discovery research done, so that these problems do not arise again and again. As the right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) said earlier about his own little kid, if there had been greater awareness at the GP level, these things could have been avoided and we would have at least had an early diagnosis and earlier treatment.

The fragmented experience that many young people and their families are going through must be addressed. We have heard already from hon. Members on both sides of the House that the fragmented service is not good enough. Jake will not take the excuse that some of those issues had to be set aside because of covid. He will not accept that excuse and his parents will not accept that excuse—and rightly so. They will not accept the excuse that there are not enough resources and enough money being made available.

Some hon. Members will not like me making this point, but I will make it: we spend more on abortion services than on childhood cancer research. Hon. Members should think about that and the weight of that. Surely we should be putting resources into childhood cancer research to save the most vulnerable lives that are already with us. That is where the effort should be made.

I agree with the points and statement of the hon. Member for Gosport and with the strategy that we must outline and deliver urgently. Let us not have another debate in a few years’ time about the issue. Let us have a celebration that we have done something—that we have directed those resources, changed lives, and had the ability to encourage the research. Let us bring together the experts who we know are already out there so that little boys such as Jake and the little girls who have been mentioned know that the treatment will be made available and that the research will result in their lives being saved, so we will see a difference. Let us give Jake and other children across this kingdom a chance.