Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Services: Covid-19

Imran Ahmad Khan Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Imran Ahmad Khan (Wakefield) (Con)]

It is not just a pleasure but a delight to serve under your chairmanship for the very first time, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) for securing this important debate at a critical time. It is a great pleasure to follow my indefatigable friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—I believe this is the first time, as he usually follows me.

The lockdown order and the ensuing restrictions that we presently endure have had a seismic impact on the services that the NHS can provide, including, crucially, cancer services. NHS figures show a 60% drop in urgent cancer referrals from the initial days of the March lockdown, compared with the same time last year.

Breast Cancer Now, which has been mentioned by a number of colleagues, has raised concerns that almost 1 million women in the UK have missed NHS breast cancer screenings as a direct consequence of the pandemic, because they were paused during the first lockdown before being gradually resumed. Mammograms have the potential to detect cancer in its early stages and, ultimately, to save lives.

Treatment for those with other cancers has been significantly disrupted. The national guidelines may well have stated that urgent and essential cancer treatment must continue, but that has not been the case in every hospital. Not everyone who has required urgent surgery has been able to access it, whether because of a lack of intensive care units or because it is too great a risk to patient or staff.

Similarly, those who have required major surgery have not always been fortunate enough to receive it. That, again, has been a consequence of a lack of recovery beds with ventilation or of there being no ICU beds, if the surgery encountered complications, or because the surgery was simply too risky. Aftercare—whether palliative care or chemotherapy—has also been disrupted by the lockdown.

The reality of those delays not only puts women under a great deal of stress and anxiety, but risks making the cancers diagnosed harder to treat if they are caught at later stages. I truly understand that pain: an inordinate number of my family members have suffered from cancer.

Those who suffer from breast cancer should not be collateral damage in the battle against covid. Worryingly, that has been the case for virtually all forms of cancer treatment. The Health Data Research hub for cancer has warned that, as a result of the pandemic, there could be an additional 18,000 deaths of people with cancer.

In Wakefield, the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust has been proactive in its attempts to ensure that cancer diagnoses occur and cancer patients are treated. Prior to the pandemic, cancer was sadly already the biggest single cause of early death in the district. Breast cancer was the second most prevalent form, with about 250 new cases diagnosed each year.

In May, Pontefract Hospital was temporarily developed into a dedicated cancer centre to care for the people of Wakefield and North Kirklees who need diagnosis for surgery and suspected cancer during the covid-19 outbreak. Here, I have similar concerns to my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Robert Largan), because the move from Pinderfields Hospital to neighbouring Pontefract was undertaken on the basis that exposure to covid-19 in Pontefract was significantly lower than in Pinderfields, which is the regional hub for covid-19 patients.

However, while I concur with the chief executive of the NHS trust, Martin Barkley, that we are

“fortunate that we have excellent modern facilities at Pontefract Hospital”,

which is relatively close to Wakefield, having to travel significantly further afield will likely be a behavioural impediment on attendance for constituents scheduled for diagnosis and treatment. That adds to the existing fear about patients entering hospitals, evidenced by Abdul Mustafa, GP lead for cancer care at NHS Wakefield CCG, who said:

“Clinicians working in cancer services know that patients are choosing not to have time-critical cancer treatment because of fear of exposure”.

In closing, I simply say that we must ensure that, however well meaning the policies, the antidote does not become worse than the disease we seek to cure.