NHS Long-term Plan

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, it was a joy to make that visit. We found ourselves in a new medical school in a room where the students were enjoying a dissection—my goodness, after a night without sleep it was quite a thing. It was a joy to go there with my hon. Friend and I agree with both the points she made.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I, too, congratulate the Secretary of State on the NHS 10-year long-term plan. There are between 6,000 and 8,000 rare diseases. One in 17 people, or 6% of the population, will be affected by a rare disease in their lifetime—that is 3.5 million people in the United Kingdom. Will he confirm a commitment to assisting those with rare diseases, and can the NICE process for new life-saving drugs be urgently speeded up so that more lives can be lightened and saved?

[Matt Hancock]

I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman. For those who have rare diseases, diagnosis takes seven years, on average, and genomics can bring that down to a matter of seven days, in the best cases. We are the world leaders in genomics and we are going to stay that way. We have reached the 100,000 genome sequence and we are going to take it to 1 million, with 500,000 from the NHS and 500,000 from the UK Biobank. He is absolutely right. This is one of the bright shining stars of the future of healthcare, and Britain is going to lead the way.