NHS: Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am aware that in some areas of the country access to GPs is proving problematic and a number of work streams are under way to address that. But we are confident in the light of the statistics that patients are not holding back in presenting to their GPs. As I said, referrals have gone up dramatically over the last few years and the NHS is treating a record number of patients.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a cancer patient. What arrangements are made for determining eligibility for treatment by the CyberKnife at the Royal Marsden and UCLH and does it involve any financial assessment of the likely cost to the NHS of the treatment of a particular patient?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my noble friend mentions a particular type of radiotherapy, the CyberKnife. At present there is only limited research evidence of the clinical and cost effectiveness of stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy—the full name. Therefore, it is available only for certain patients with lung cancer. Having said that, NHS England has agreed to make £6 million available over the next few years for new clinical trials which will involve trials on prostate cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and biliary tract cancers. It is important that we generate that clinical evidence before encouraging the NHS to apply this form of radiotherapy to those cancers.