Chris Bryant
Main Page: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)Department Debates - View all Chris Bryant's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Covid-19
Chris Bryant Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Matt Hancock
I will certainly look into whether the roll-out can start in Buckinghamshire. Thankfully, it has a relatively low rate of the virus, which is good news, and we are working to ensure that the testing system there is as effective as it can be. That will include using this new generation of testing when we can begin to roll it out more broadly than the current pilots.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Cancer is rapidly becoming an even bigger catastrophe than anything else. The number of new cancer patients presenting is down by more than a quarter this year. The number of appointments for cancer specialist treatment is down by more than a quarter. The amount of money available for clinical trials has completely fallen through the floor. There is a real danger that lots and lots of people are going to die of cancer this year unnecessarily, when there is treatment that could be available, and that new treatments will not come online. Will the Secretary of State please put together a single taskforce to deal with cancer during this process, increase the amount of money for new kit, in particular in radiotherapy, make sure that we have enough pathologists, histopathologists and haematologists for the future, and make up the additional money for the clinical trials?
Matt Hancock
The hon. Gentleman’s point about research is important. In the places where research has paused because of the virus, the programme of restart is well under way. I am glad to say that although the backlog of cancer cases had increased—because it is not safe to treat cancer during a pandemic and because of some of the surgery that had to be paused—we are now halfway through recovering from that backlog on the latest figures. Obviously that recovery is incredibly important, and it is important to look at the catch-up as well as the absolute drop in overall delivery of cancer services. It is also critically important that people who fear that they may have cancer come forward to the NHS.