Lung Cancer

Jackie Doyle-Price Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jackie Doyle-Price)]

It is a real privilege to respond to my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) because he genuinely is a friend and has been a great friend to me. The public see this bear pit where we rip each other apart on a regular basis, but I am sure you will agree, Mr Deputy Speaker, that this is also a very special place.

The House takes a judgment of people and views us all as honourable Members, and my right hon. Friend is known for being one of the most decent men in this place. The genuine outpouring of concern and love when he was forced to make his announcement was tangible. I am not surprised that he was surprised to hear where some of the good messages came from, but he should take that as well deserved. He has talked today about a very personal and traumatic experience, and he did so with real purpose and dignity. In doing so, he has shown the best parts of being a Member of this House, and I warmly congratulate him. It has made it very difficult for me to answer, but there we are.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. He suggested he was lucky to get an early diagnosis and the outcome that he has. There is an element of luck in it, but I will come back to that. The most important point he made was the fact that he followed up with his doctors and did not let it go. The most important thing in getting a good outcome from cancer is being vigilant and taking that early action.

In my right hon. Friend’s speech, he has humanised his story. We all recognise the behaviours that he outlined. It must have been a very painful decision for him to make—at the top of his game, having entered the Cabinet as Secretary of State and done really good stuff, he was suddenly faced with physical health issues but knew it was the right thing to do and took comfort from his family. The rightness of that is here for all to see.

Luck forms part of it, but we also need to properly engage with health professionals. Some people are dogged, others do not want to face up to it, but we all need to have a much more open conversation. The days when cancer was a death sentence are gone. Cancer survival rates in this country have never been higher. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, that is down to early diagnosis and good treatment. The latest survival figures show an estimated 7,000 more people surviving cancer after successful NHS treatment than three years ago, and that is testament to the hard work of our dedicated NHS staff, but we must do better. Our aim is to save an additional 30,000 lives by 2020. Some 130,000 people die from cancer every year, so there is much to do, which is why the Government have accepted all 96 recommendations in the cancer strategy and backed up this commitment with £600 million of additional funding up to 2021.

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) on a superb speech. It sounds a provocative thing to say perhaps, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that we have cured cancer, in the sense that if diagnosed early enough survival rates shoot up. This might also sound provocative, but it pays for itself. If we can screen people and catch it early, treatment is cheaper than when it is caught later, so although screening would entail a big upfront cost, it would not only save many lives but pay for itself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

It has always been a mystery to me why we spend £200 a year on an MOT for our car but do not do the same for our own health. But I will come to the issue of screening in a moment.

I first want to tackle some of the specific points about lung cancer that my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup raised. As he said, it is one of the most common and serious types of cancer, with 44,500 people diagnosed every year in the UK. Early diagnosis is key but, as he said, in the early stages there are not necessarily signs or symptoms, which is why diagnosis can often come too late. We need to raise public awareness and people need to be vigilant.

The issue of smoking is a very important one. It says here in my brief that smoking is the leading cause of avoidable cancers, particularly lung cancer—that is true, but because it is true it has led to a stigma around the disease, and because of its close association to smoking, many people, even if only subconsciously, view it as a self-inflicted disease. As we can see, that was not the case for my right hon. Friend, but it is very unfair to reach such prejudiced judgments about what is a very unpleasant disease.

As was the case with my right hon. Friend, 15% of lung cancer patients are non-smokers, yet an international survey by the Global Lung Cancer Coalition revealed that a quarter of people in the UK had less sympathy for people with that illness than for those with other forms of cancer. It is clear that lung cancer is not just a smoker’s disease, yet some people believe that that stigma is one of the reasons that lung cancer does not receive the level of research funding that other cancers enjoy. When it comes to cancer research, we know that as well as Government funding there is lots of voluntary funding, and for as long as that prejudice exists, lung cancer will not attract as much investment.

It is important, however, that we continue to spend money on research because, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out, lung cancer survival rates are poor and, although overall cancer survival rates are at an all-time high, some cancers have a five-year survival rate of less than 20%. That is why the Government are supporting the less survivable cancers taskforce, which the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), launched last year and which will look specifically at lung cancer, but also liver cancer—which I suspect suffers from the same stigma—brain, pancreatic and stomach cancer. It will focus on encouraging more research into less survivable cancers. My right hon. Friend also referred to the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, which does fantastic work to raise awareness of the disease, and I thank it for its work.

By way of an aside, if people are diagnosed with lung cancer, that tends to be all people see. I had a relative who died of emphysema, but he was a smoker. His death certificate pointed out that the cause of death was emphysema due to smoking. It ignored the fact that he had spent most of his working life in mills, where he would have inhaled various things. That is something that the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) touched on, and it is close to my heart because of my own experience, as well as that of my right hon. Friend.

On screening, the United Kingdom national screening committee advises Ministers and the NHS in all four nations about screening policy. At the moment, systematic population screening for lung cancer is not recommended, owing to a lack of evidence that it will save lives. There is a considerable amount of research worldwide on CT screening for high-risk groups, such as smokers and ex-smokers. In the Manchester pilots, NHS England offered free health checks and on-the-spot scans to smokers and ex-smokers in Manchester, as my right hon. Friend has explained, as a result of which 46 cases of cancer were discovered. There is evidence that we can achieve things by intervening, and that is something that we should look at. NHS England is encouraged by the results. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) has said, by reaching diagnosis early, we take cost out of the NHS. What is not to like about that? We will look at it further.

I am running out of time, but the Floor belongs to my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, who is now trying to intervene on me.

[James Brokenshire]

I think my hon. Friend has a few minutes left, because we started just after 5 o’clock. I commit to working with her and her ministerial colleagues to advance screening. I know that there is a lot of discussion about how to do so in the expert working groups. The pilots were not so much about screening as they were about carrying out scans, so the set-up is slightly different. None the less, it is important that they inform our working together. As I have made clear, CT scanning has the clear benefit of ensuring that we can pick up cancers sooner and enabling patients to get the treatment that they need to live full and long lives.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My right hon. Friend has made a generous offer. I will address the point that he has made in two ways. The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester, is responsible for cancer screening programmes. Our current advice is that national uniform screening would not be productive, but we know about that route. I come back to my right hon. Friend’s experience because he had the wherewithal and courage to face up to a health issue that he had identified and take things forward. I think that the best way of getting improved outcomes is to empower patients to look after and manage their own care, and to have mature conversations with medical professionals so that full investigations can be made. Such conversations would lead to earlier screening. I would be delighted to work with my right hon. Friend to achieve that. We educate the public by sharing real life examples, and that is how we give them the tools to look after themselves. I look forward to working with him on that.

In the time I have left, I re-emphasise that we are making good progress and remain on track to deliver each of the 96 recommendations in the cancer strategy. That will help us to transform cancer services in England, to the benefit of all cancer patients including those with lung cancer. I cannot thank my right hon. Friend enough for securing this debate. I wish him continued success with his own health and send my best wishes to his family, who have gone with him through a very painful and traumatic journey. I thank him again for all the work that he is doing to raise awareness of the disease.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Before I put the question, I want to echo what Mr Speaker said. Welcome back, and know that this House is at its best when we need to support each other. I have been through that, and I cannot speak highly enough of the way that people get together. Welcome back, and may your health continue to be of the best.

Question put and agreed to.