World Cancer Day

Debate between Karen Lee and John Lamont

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[John Lamont]

I could not agree more. There is an awareness issue. Often, when people develop some symptoms that they are unsure of, they are nervous about going to the doctor. People need to be encouraged to step forward and go to their GP, to ensure that if there is an opportunity to get an early diagnosis, that is achieved, because the results are clearly much more positive if that is the case.

That is why we have early diagnosis targets across the UK, and why it is so serious that in Scotland, more than 20% of patients are waiting for longer than the six-week standard for diagnostic tests. Too many people are waiting too long for treatment. NHS boards north of the border are meant to take no more than two months to start treatment, but that target is being missed for every type of cancer. In some health boards, one in five patients did not meet that target. I am sure we have all received emails from patients who are faced with an agonising wait for treatment, knowing that they have cancer. While the missed targets are by no means unique to Scotland, I hope that we can all come together here—Scottish National party colleagues included—to call on the Scottish Government to make clear that that needs to get better.

I should also be interested to hear the Minister’s views on whether any consideration has been given to reviewing treatment target times with a view to introducing faster treatment targets for certain types of cancer. It strikes me as odd that across the UK our targets are the same for all cancers, regardless of type.

One significant reason for the time taken to diagnose and treat is problems to do with workforce. Demand for tests is only going to increase, due to a growing and ageing population, but we already do not have enough staff in a range of areas.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me on the impact of no longer having nursing bursaries? When I was a nurse, I had a nursing bursary. I could not have trained without that. We really must bring back the bursary. It is all right saying, “We have all these vacancies and we are going to have all these nurses,” but if people do not train, we will not have the people to fill those vacancies.

[John Lamont]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. There is a range of options that we need to consider. I recently met my local NHS health board, and I meet a number of my GPs frequently. There are vacancies in all different parts of the health service, and we need to consider how we get more people in to do the jobs that we need. There is a particular challenge in my constituency—many rural communities do not have enough GPs or get enough nurses. Bursaries may be part of that. There are a range of things that we need to do, and that the Scottish Government and the UK Government can do, to address those issues.

For example, there is a 10% vacancy rate for radiology consultants across Scotland. One in five of the current workforce are expected to retire over the next five years. So, yes, there are challenges just now, but there are future challenges coming down the line.