Cancer Outcomes: Tees Valley

Helen Whately Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Helen Whately)]

Let me begin by thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) for securing this debate. He has been working hard to make sure that his constituents get faster diagnosis and better treatment for cancer. He mentioned working together with his constituents on the clinical side, doing tremendous work to lead efforts to diagnose and care for people in his area, as well as fundraising. I heard him mention the Pink Ball, which sounds tremendous. I pass on many congratulations to all those involved and commend them for their work.

As my right hon. Friend said, many people are affected by cancer, whether due to a diagnosis themselves or somebody they are close to. Many people have therefore lived through that difficult experience of waiting to hear whether they will be diagnosed with cancer, or have the all-clear after being referred for testing. For patients with cancer, it is quite simple: faster diagnosis saves lives. That is why this Government are helping the NHS recover and transform health services in the aftermath of the pandemic, with a particular focus on the earlier diagnosis of cancer.

I will talk a little about what we are doing nationally, but I will focus on my right hon. Friend’s constituency. He mentioned the high prevalence of cancer in his constituency and the wider Tees Valley. To give a sense of the scale, in 2020, there were just under 4,000 cancer diagnoses in the Tees Valley, so that gives a sense of the number of people who could benefit from faster diagnosis, which we know can improve outcomes. There is more that we can and should do to prevent people, both nationally and in the Tees Valley, from developing cancer in the first place, such as policies that help people maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle and stop smoking, and promoting the uptake of the HPV vaccine, particularly in groups where coverage is lower.

[Alex Cunningham]

The Minister mentioned my magic word—smoking. Could she give us some indication of when the Government will bring forward the tobacco control plan? She recognises, as I do, that in the most deprived inner-city communities the incidence of smoking is higher and lung cancer is higher as a result. I would be interested to know what plans she has to bring that forward.

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to pick up on what I said about the importance of supporting people to stop smoking, but for the sake of this Adjournment debate I will focus on responding to my right hon. Friend’s speech, particularly looking at cancer diagnostic services.

We want to level up diagnostic services for cancer around the country so that people with symptoms of potential cancer can receive an accurate diagnosis and begin treatment as quickly as possible. That is part of our ambition to reduce health disparities in more deprived areas, such as some areas in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, and to improve early-stage cancer diagnosis rates for all. A key part of improving early diagnoses is ensuring that people come forward when they suspect that they have cancer.

Sadly but understandably, during the pandemic we saw the number of urgent referrals for cancer fall, but it is positive that in the North East and North Cumbria integrated care board over 13,000 patients had their first consultation appointment following an urgent GP referral in November last year. That is an 18% increase from November 2020 during the pandemic, and nearly a 20% increase on the figures for November 2019 prior to the pandemic. That indicates that in the Tees Valley, as we are seeing across the country, people are coming forward to be diagnosed or discover that they have the all-clear from cancer, which is the case for most people.

In a moment I will talk about our innovative new community diagnostic centre programme, but first I want to highlight some of the other things we are doing to improve the early diagnosis of cancer. One important innovation is introducing the serious non-specific cancer pathway, which Tees Valley has successfully implemented. This means that GPs can refer patients into the service when there are possible symptoms of potential cancer, or someone has a gut feeling that something is not right. That is especially important for patients who do not fit specific pathway referral criteria but whose symptoms are more generic.

In addition, Tees Valley has initiated a programme of targeted lung health checks aimed at people aged between 55 and 74. My right hon. Friend referred to that and the impact that it is having. It is anticipated that the programme will result in around 530 diagnoses of lung cancer over the next four years. In deprived areas of Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Darlington, clinicians are taking part in a trial to assess the benefit of the new GRAIL test that looks for signs of cancer in a sample of blood. This is hugely exciting as it can identify cancer where no symptoms are even present, allowing for earlier diagnosis.

However, the waiting list for diagnostic tests in England currently stands at over 1.59 million patients, with around 26% of those patients waiting more than six weeks. In the North East and Yorkshire region, the waiting list for diagnostic tests has over 200,000 patients, with just over 20% of those waiting more than six weeks. These are figures that we very much want to improve because, as I have said, earlier diagnosis can mean better outcomes. We want to get to the point where 95% of patients needing a diagnostic test receive it within six weeks by March 2025. Equally, early-stage cancer diagnosis is a key ambition of the NHS long-term plan, which aims to ensure that 75% of cancers are identified at stage 1 or stage 2.

[Tim Farron]

What the Minister says about the waiting time for diagnostics is very troubling. What is even more troubling is that in my part of Cumbria 43% of people who have had a diagnosis of cancer are now waiting more than two months for their first treatment. In North Cumbria and Northumberland, the figure is 62%. Can she say what she is going to do to speed up treatment for those people who have had a diagnosis of cancer?

[Helen Whately]

Yes of course. More people coming through for referral for cancer diagnosis and increased early rates of diagnosis feed through into us needing to increase the rates of treatment. The NHS is treating more people for cancer, but of course this is taking time because of the increased levels of referrals. We are working very hard to do this.

I want to return to talking particularly about cancer diagnosis and what we are doing to do that earlier, and specifically about the community diagnostic centres that are being rolled out across the country supported by £2.3 billion of capital investment. Local health systems can bid for a share of that funding when they make the case for community need and clinical value, and I am delighted to say that 89 community diagnostic centres are currently operational across the country. Hard-working NHS staff have so far delivered more than 2.7 million additional checks at these centres. Specifically in the Tees Valley, I know that my right hon. Friend has been working with his local NHS to support its proposal for a new diagnostic centre in Stockton-on-Tees, and I can update him with the good news that this new site has been approved, with a planned opening date of December 2023.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)]

Can I thank the Government for this fantastic investment in my part of the town? It will save lives. Also, importantly, can I thank the Government for challenging us locally to deliver it more quickly so that we can save more lives more quickly and make a bigger difference to the community? Thank you very much. We are going to do our best.

[Helen Whately]

It is good to be able to talk about good news. As my hon. Friend says, his area is not only getting a community diagnostic centre but getting it quicker because the timeframe for doing it has been brought forward. That is tremendous, and I look forward to his area achieving that later this year. It is great that we have been able to announce the date when it will open.

The new Castlegate site for the Tees Valley community diagnostic centre is planned for construction on the Castlegate shopping centre site as part of the local regeneration project. There are excellent transport links, which means that it will be accessible to the whole community. It is important to make these places accessible in order to get people to come forward for testing and screening. This will be the latest addition to the 14 existing community diagnostic centres in the North East and Yorkshire region and the four hub-and-spoke sites in the Tees Valley area, which have so far delivered over 250,000 tests.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Helen Whately]

I want to respond to the other comments from my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, who also raised the important role that the independent sector has to play in meeting the needs of patients. Last month, my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care launched the elective recovery taskforce, bringing together academics and healthcare experts to advise the Government on how best to unlock capacity in the independent sector to reduce waiting times. The independent sector is also helping us directly to tackle the diagnostic backlog, providing additional capacity in underserved communities and forming productive partnerships with the NHS to run community diagnostic centres.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) asked about effective treatment, and I am pleased to say that the NHS has treated a record number of people for cancer in the last year, with more than 321,000 people receiving their first cancer treatment between December 2021 and November 2022, which is up by more than 10,000, or 3%, on the same period pre-pandemic. Within the North East and North Cumbria ICB, 1,690 patients started their first treatment for cancer in November 2022. The number has recovered following the pandemic—the equivalent figure for November 2019 is 1,652.

The NHS continues to offer cutting-edge treatments, including newly developed drugs and radiotherapy. Just a week or so ago, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State signed a memorandum of understanding with BioNTech to bring innovative vaccine research to England, with the potential to transform outcomes for early-stage and late-stage cancer patients.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland for raising this important issue and for his continued commitment to improving cancer care in the north-east and Tees valley region. I encourage him to continue his excellent work with his local NHS system, and I look forward to continuing to work with him and the NHS as we meet the challenge of reducing diagnostic waiting times and improving cancer outcomes.

Question put and agreed to.