Breast Cancer

Debate between Karen Lee and Sharon Hodgson

Thursday 18th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

The challenge to the Minister is whether improvements to the breast cancer workforce will include recruiting and training additional secondary breast cancer nurses, clinical nurse specialists—whatever we may decide to call them—so that patients have the vital support they need and no one has to witness their loved ones suffering in agony, with only over-the-counter painkillers to ease the pain, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln so bravely testified to earlier.

[Karen Lee]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the withdrawal of nursing bursaries cannot fail to have impacted on the numbers of nurses training? There are figures out today—I have been on the radio this morning. I think there has been more than a 30% drop in the number of people training to be nurses since the nursing bursary was withdrawn. That cannot fail to have had an impact. It impacts on radiographers as well, because they train for three years, then for another year after that to do mammograms. Does she agree that those bursaries absolutely must be reinstated?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Yes, I agree. Obviously, that is why it is in our manifesto that we would reinstate those nursing bursaries. I would urge the Government to look at this closely, especially in light of Brexit, and what might happen post Brexit, with regard to the EU workforce, as I already mentioned.

Finally, I will move on to prevention. It is a challenge to us all to live healthier lives. I do not stand here saying I am doing a very good job, but we know that regularly drinking alcohol, as the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire mentioned earlier, and being overweight or obese, can increase the risk of developing breast cancer—and most cancers—as can smoking and lack of exercise. Regular physical exercise and reducing all the above can reduce the risk. Researchers estimated that 23% of breast cancers are preventable through lifestyle changes. That means there were approximately 10,600 preventable cases in 2016. Turning that into money, approximately £102 million in treatment costs could have been saved in 2016 if all those cases had been prevented. I know that may not be completely achievable, but since 2015, public health budgets have been cut by 3.9% a year until 2020-21. Has the Minister made any assessment of the effect that cuts to public health budgets have had on the incidence of breast cancer, and will he commit, as much as he can, to an increase in public health funding to help to prevent more cases of breast cancer? I know that might be above his pay grade; he is not the Chancellor—yet.

In closing, I will touch on secondary breast cancer. More than half of women are given no information about the signs and symptoms of breast cancer returning. Will the Minister look into ensuring that all patients are advised at the end of their primary breast cancer treatment about lifestyle and symptoms, so that where possible all cases of incurable secondary breast cancer can be prevented? I know that, like me, the Minister is incredibly passionate about breast cancer and that he will take much if not all of what he has heard today back to his Department to work on, so that he can achieve the best future for breast cancer.

On the day of Dame Tessa Jowell’s memorial, I will end by quoting from her magnificent last speech in the House of Lords in January this year, when she said:

“In the end, what gives a life meaning is not only how it is lived, but how it draws to a close.”

She said that she hoped the debate would give hope to other cancer patients,

“so that we can live well together with cancer—not just dying of it”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 January 2018; Vol. 788, c. 1170.]

Perhaps her most precious legacy will be not only Sure Start and the Olympics, as wonderful as they are, but a better future for everyone with any form of cancer.