Pancreatic Cancer

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this Adjournment debate and to my friend the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), the deputy chair of the all-party group, for his constant work. He introduced the Westminster Hall debate and it seems that we merry three—the Minister, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe and myself—meet frequently in these debates. But we make no excuses for that.

With the permission of the hon. Member for Scunthorpe, I will let the Minister into a secret; we deliberately went for this debate not knowing the outcome of the cancer drugs fund decision. We must thank everyone involved in the decision to keep Abraxane. Those include the people who signed the petition, and my hon. Friends the Members for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) and for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), the right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), who accompanied me to No. 10 to hand in the petition. I thank also Pancreatic Cancer UK, Pancreatic Cancer Action—as mentioned by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe—Pancreatic Research UK and Maggie Blanks. I thank everybody who put so much effort into this. But as the hon. Gentleman said, it is temporary and we expect something more.

Reference has been made to the period of two months but in terms of the average, that could double the survival rates of most people with pancreatic cancer. I will not repeat the figures but, on average, 24 people today will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Of those 24, 23 will die within a year. That is the situation.

I also thank the Minister and, as the hon. Member for Scunthorpe mentioned—he seemed to mention everything—there is the five-year action plan. We talked about unmet need and the Americans have talked about recalcitrant cancer strategy, but I add my support to the hon. Gentleman that that becomes part of the responsibilities of the taskforce.

I welcome the announcement last month by NHS England that one-year survival rates from cancer would become a measurement for the new clinical commissioning groups from 2015. I believe that that will make a huge difference; not just with pancreatic cancer but with every cancer. Given that that is the only disease that will be measured in those terms, I thank the Minister and her colleagues for getting that through. I also commend the work of the all-party group on cancer led by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), which has worked constantly on early diagnosis. That will be a fundamental key in the revolution that is happening in cancer, and we would like to see it happen for pancreatic cancer.

I also thank the Minister for her detailed reply to the all-party group’s report on pancreatic research, “A Roadmap to Change.” We are grateful for that and the group will try to come back on it. But I have one last request; when I met the Minister, we were promised that the chief medical officer would at some point come to the all-party group and discuss the findings. I would be grateful if she used her good offices to ensure that that happens.