Life Sciences

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

In the first instance, the £180 million to which I referred consists of £90 million from the Medical Research Council, which is new money within its existing budget but not at the expense of any other programmes. The other £90 million is provided by the Treasury to the TSB and is new money. None of this comes out of any NHS resources. The implementation will be led by the Medical Research Council, so to that extent it will not be driven by Government.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend believe that there is a threat that parts of the UK pharmaceutical industry might relocate overseas if this package of reforms does not proceed?

[Mr Lansley]

There is always that risk because, as my hon. Friend entirely knows, international competition is intense, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector. Following the measures that were announced alongside the Budget in the plan for growth, not least the availability of the patent box from April 2013, it is clear from discussions that my right hon. Friends and I have had with many of the boards of leading international pharmaceutical companies that the United Kingdom is now becoming a better location for investment in pharmaceutical activity than used to be the case. Those companies look very positively at the steps we have taken on regulatory activity and clinical trials, at the steps we are taking on promoting innovation through the value-based pricing system, and in particular, understandably, at the tax measures that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced, especially on the patent box.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I will of course answer the question. The answer is that this is entirely driven by clinical issues in a local context. I can tell the hon. Lady that it is very much about trying to improve vascular services, and the judgments being made are local and clinical.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

T2. What leadership role do the Government expect the new health and wellbeing boards to play in determining significant NHS service changes in each local area?

[Mr Lansley]

The health and wellbeing boards will have a role not only in leading improvements in public health and social care but, through the joint strategic needs assessment and the strategy derived from that, in establishing how services should respond to the needs of the local population. The clinical commissioning group should respond directly to that, and any specific service configuration changes should form part of the commissioning plan. In addition, the local authority, through its scrutiny role, will have a continuing ability to refer those plans for review.

Ovarian Cancer

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Stuart Andrew]

The hon. Gentleman is in danger of stealing my thunder, but I am glad that he has emphasised my point before I have made it.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this important matter before the House. He is right to highlight awareness, but there is also the need for better information for women and their families following diagnosis. A close relative of mine was diagnosed with the condition, but there was a lack of knowledge of where to find more information about it. That led me and others to look online at a condition that was similar, but had a very different five-year survival rate. That caused a lot of unnecessary anguish to close family members.

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend raises a valid point. I worked in the hospice movement for about 15 years, and time and again we heard from parents of children at the hospice or patients in the adult hospice that when they were told of their disease, they almost went blank; they heard not the rest of the information, but just the dreaded diagnosis. It is crucial that people are given as much information as possible to take away and digest later.

As I said, 76% of women recognise the most common symptom of breast cancer, but there is clearly a lack of understanding about the significance of symptoms that they may experience due to ovarian cancer. Furthermore, GPs are not picking up the disease quickly enough. Just 22% of women are urgently referred to the two-week cancer referral route, and the rest are either sent away, or treated or referred inappropriately. Late diagnosis has been identified by the cancer benchmarking study, funded by the Department of Health, as a key driver for the poor ovarian cancer survival rates. That study seeks to understand the differing survival rates between countries for breast, lung, bowel and ovarian cancer. For some reason, despite the findings, ovarian cancer was the only cancer in the study not to be included in subsequent awareness campaigns. A large majority of women who are diagnosed in the later stages of the disease will experience recurrences, and many will develop resistance to chemotherapy.

My constituent, Chris Shagouri, is undergoing treatment yet again to try to slow the progress of the disease. Her strength and commitment to help to improve the lives of women who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer is amazing, especially when she could be forgiven for wanting to concentrate her efforts on herself and her close family. Chris Shagouri is representative of the many women who have attended meetings of the all-party group on ovarian cancer, and who share a determination to change the status quo. They often say that if just one woman gets a quicker diagnosis it will have been worth it, because for that woman this really is a matter of life and death. I hope that we can reach a better total than just one woman.

Treatments for ovarian cancer are highly intensive and invasive. An American study showed that, compared with women who have breast cancer, those with ovarian cancer spend nearly 10 times as long being treated in hospital in the first year after diagnosis and the last year of life. There have been no new life extending treatments for women with ovarian cancer during the past 20 years.

Why do members of the all-party group on ovarian cancer want to have this debate? Because we feel that, right now, an important opportunity to make much needed progress is being overlooked. I welcome the Government’s work, and commend them for it, with the cancer drug fund and the palliative care strategy —it was long overdue. In January, the Government published their new cancer strategy, which contained a strong commitment to improving early diagnosis and a multimillion pound investment in cancer awareness campaigns—fantastic stuff. It initially included regional breast, lung and bowel cancer campaigns, and recently we have heard that a national bowel cancer awareness programme will be rolled out next year, following the success of the pilots. New campaigns on oesophogastric cancers, and kidney or bladder cancer, will be run at a local level. The all-party group remains frustrated that ovarian cancer is not included in that admirable work.

The Government are committed to saving more than 5,000 lives a year from cancer by 2014-15, and women with ovarian cancer could represent 10% of that figure. Each year, up to 500 women lose their lives unnecessarily to ovarian cancer because we do not do as well as other European countries. The Government’s study showed that late diagnosis is a key driver of deaths from ovarian cancer in the UK, and it is curious that the condition was not included in the awareness campaigns in this country.

Why can an awareness campaign on ovarian cancer not be started now, even in pilot form? We applaud the Minister for the commitment to improve people’s chances of surviving cancer, but urge him to include ovarian cancer in the awareness work that is being done. Every day we wait, another one or two women, like my grandmother or such as Chris Shagouri, and many others who have been campaigning will lose their lives unnecessarily. As a matter of urgency, I ask the Minister whether he will consider an awareness campaign and whether he will meet with representatives from the all-party group on ovarian cancer to discuss how we can take such a campaign forward and stop other women suffering in future.