Coronavirus Response

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I will do better than that: when we get scientific evidence on the impact of cold weather on this virus, we will publish it.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab) [V]]

I hope the Secretary of State is aware of the tragic case of Kelly Smith, who sadly died when her cancer treatment was stopped during the covid lockdown. The Government’s aspiration to get cancer services back to normal by the end of the year is simply not acceptable. Too many cancers are incurable within a few weeks. Will he address this issue, and will he look at transforming radiotherapy services, which have emerged as being highly effective as a cancer treatment and can be delivered even if there is a second spike in the pandemic?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the importance of this. We are getting cancer services back up and running as fast as possible. The idea that we are waiting until the end of the year before doing anything is completely wrong. We are going as fast as we can. During the peak, some of the services did have to be stopped for clinical reasons. My heart goes out to those whose treatment was stopped because of covid and who died of cancer, The judgments were made on an individual clinical basis as to whether it was safer to go ahead with the treatment or to stop it, because, of course, many treatments for cancer are much more dangerous when there is a high volume of infectious disease. I understand that that explanation will be of no comfort to Kelly’s family and friends who mourn her, but I also understand why the NHS made that decision and I support them in the decision that it made. We must get this going again as fast as possible. This is something on which I am working very closely with the NHS. In fact, I had a meeting on it only last week. I also entirely agree on the point about radiology services, too.