Lung Cancer Screening

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend speaks with great authority on this issue, and she is right to highlight the importance of mesothelioma. A key theme of the pilots is the importance of convenience of access to screening, and a key part of the programme’s expansion is enabling it to be targeted at those communities that are at highest risk, as we heard a moment ago. I take on board her concerns about some of Medway’s challenges, and I know that she has called for this direction of travel more widely in the past—for the targeting of early detection in the community, because early detection brings far better patient outcomes.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Screening is obviously important, and early detection is a good thing, but I wish the Secretary of State had not made this announcement today, because it is only a tenth of what we need to do to change things. There is a danger that we will make things worse.

My melanoma was diagnosed late, at stage 3, but my treatment started very quickly, within five days. My anxiety is that if we do not have enough radiographers and radiologists, as my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) said, we will be shifting people from doing one set of tests—those for people who may have a later-stage cancer—to other sets of tests, unless we significantly increase the workforce.

Secondly, as the Secretary of State knows well, the statistics for people starting their treatment when we know they have cancer, because they have been diagnosed, are going in the wrong direction. I wish he had been able to stand at the Dispatch Box today and say, “We are going to have more radiographers and radiologists—I can guarantee that—and we are going to make sure that every single person who gets a diagnosis starts their treatment earlier and on time, otherwise we are failing them.”

[Steve Barclay]

Such is the nature of cancer that it has touched many Members, and I know the hon. Gentleman has taken a long, close interest in this issue. Of course, more than nine in 10 cancer patients get treatment within a month. He is right that it is also about diagnosis, which is why, through the community diagnostic centres, we are rolling out 4 million additional tests and scans, about which I spoke a moment ago. It is also why we have invested over £5 billion through our elective recovery programme, including over £1 billion for the 43 new and expanded surgical hubs. There is additional capacity going in, both on the diagnostic side and on the surgical hub side. We need to do both, and we are making significant progress.