Cancer Care

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Nicola Richards]

I totally agree. Any statistics and data that we can gather will help us to improve services and understand the landscape when it comes to who is affected and when cancer can recur, and it is important that we take all that into account. It is important to have a long-term plan for making our cancer services fit for what is to come. They need to cope with the increased demand, and deliver the world-leading outcomes that patients deserve.

Last year, the Government declared war on cancer. They announced a 10-year plan to ramp up our cancer services and make them the world leader that they ought to be. However, we now know that our plans for cancer care will become part of the five-year major conditions strategy. Although it is clearly important to take a holistic approach to caring for people with life-threatening diseases, there is no killer like cancer. We must ensure that our strategy addresses the key elements of what would be a world-leading cancer care system: research, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care. I will first discuss one of the most important elements that we need addressed in the strategy: diagnosis.

Finding cancer early and commencing treatment is key to survival rates. For instance, 90% of people diagnosed at the earliest stage of bowel cancer will survive for five years or more, compared with just 10% of those diagnosed at the latest stage. Furthermore, almost everyone diagnosed with breast cancer at the earliest stage can receive treatment and live for five years or more, whereas only three in 10 women diagnosed at the latest stage survive for more than five years. The picture also varies by region. Unfortunately, if someone lives in the west midlands, they are statistically less likely to survive for five years or more after being diagnosed with lung cancer than those across England on average, and all combined mortality rates are significantly higher than average, too. Those stark figures hammer home the need to make sure that we detect cancer and commence treatment at the earliest opportunity.

I welcome the commitment from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that the strategy will shift our model towards the early detection and treatment of diseases. I also welcome the ambitious target set to diagnose 75% of cancers early by 2028. I look forward to reviewing how the strategy will address the need for greater capacity in the breast screening programme, ensure that all women at elevated risk of breast cancer are included in the national breast screening programme, and raise the proportion of all cancers that are diagnosed early; at present, just under 60% are.

Of course, it is not enough to detect cancer in its earliest stage. We also have to make sure that people receive treatment promptly, especially after urgent referrals. Much work still needs to be done in that area. Only 54.5% of people starting their treatment after an urgent referral do so within the 62-day target, and around 2,100 people have waited more than 104 days to begin their treatment. In my constituency of West Bromwich East and the wider Sandwell area, there is a mixed picture when it comes to meeting those important targets. It is welcome that our local health service met the two-week target for referring urgent suspected cancer cases to a specialist. However, like much of the rest of the country, other targets, including the 62-day standard, were not met. When I compare those statistics with the survival rates that I mentioned, it is obvious that we have to do more to ensure that people start treatment as early as possible. A critical element of that is ensuring that cancer services are sufficiently well staffed.

It would be remiss of me not to honour the people who work day in, day out, providing care for cancer patients across the country. We have all relied on them to care for us and our loved ones, in sometimes the most desperate circumstances, and to provide comfort for us in our time of need. I put on the record my thanks to the Mary Stevens Hospice in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb); it looked after my mum in her last days, and held a last-minute wedding blessing for me and my now husband at my mum’s request.

We need to address the shortfalls in the workforce that are affecting our success in improving cancer outcomes. We have a shortfall of both clinical oncologists and radiologists, who are vital to the effort to diagnose and treat cancer patients in the earliest stages. It is so important to tackle the workforce issues with long-term plans to recruit and train the staff we need to tackle cancer properly. I welcome the Government’s NHS long-term workforce plan, which commits to addressing those and many other issues across the NHS workforce. I ask the Government to ensure that the necessary funding is provided to meet those commitments.

On the major conditions strategy, I hope that the Government will take into account the wealth of views expressed by Cancer Research UK and other key organisations in the cancer community in last year’s call for evidence, and ensure that the strategy lays the groundwork for a longer-term strategy on cancer that also tackles inequalities.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. Four in 10 cancers across the UK are preventable. We all know that. Action to prevent cancers will save lives. Northern Ireland—this is not the responsibility of the Minister, by the way—has no smoke-free target. We need a strategy to stop people smoking, to encourage young people not to start smoking, and to fund research and support programmes. Does the hon. Lady agree that we must have a UK-wide smoke-free target? Despite health being a devolved issue, we have to be on the same page to create a national target to prevent some of the deadliest cancers that so many people suffer from and lose their lives to. She is very much committed to that, as am I.

[Nicola Richards]

I completely agree. It is important that we do wider work around prevention, so that when someone who has a history of cancer in their family presents themselves to the NHS, they are taken seriously and their health is evaluated at the earliest stage. That could save the NHS a lot of money and the individual and their family a lot of pain and suffering.

In my constituency of West Bromwich East and the wider Sandwell area, we have worse health outcomes than other areas of the country, as I mentioned. Combined mortality rates for all cancers are higher in the west midlands than the English average. That situation must improve. We have a fantastic opportunity to level up healthcare in our area through the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital, which will open to my constituents in West Bromwich in the coming year. It is one of a number of new hospitals that this Government are delivering to help level up healthcare. It is vital that we properly equip new and existing hospitals, so that we can tackle waiting times and improve outcomes for patients.

One of the more high-tech solutions, of which we need to see more, is radiotherapy. I recently attended an event in Parliament hosted by Radiotherapy UK and learned more about this form of treatment, which is known to be extremely cost-effective and less invasive. It costs around £3,000 to £7,000 to cure a cancer patient using radiotherapy. West Bromwich Albion legend, Bryan Robson, also attended the event in support of radiotherapy, and I had the opportunity to have a brief chat with him to discuss how the treatment saved his life. During the event, I signed the declaration asking for more action to tackle waiting times and in support of radiotherapy.

The major conditions strategy is an opportunity to refocus on this type of treatment and to ensure that it receives the necessary investment, so that many more people around the country have the option of radiotherapy to treat their cancer. Although having world-leading facilities is vital, they must be backed up with the world-leading strategy we need, and staffed with the people who provide the excellent levels of care that we know our workforce can provide when they are given the right tools. I therefore welcome the Government’s plans to ensure that we tackle the health inequalities between our regions, and I look forward to hearing more about what that means for cancer patients across the country.

I welcome the positive steps that we have already taken to improve cancer care in this country. Evidence suggests that countries with the best cancer outcomes are those that adopt long-term cancer-specific strategies. I therefore hope that the major conditions strategy will commit to improving outcomes for cancer patients and their families, as well as paving the way for a long-term strategy on cancer care that will make our services the best in the world.