Children: Cancer Debate
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Lord Patel
Main Page: Lord Patel (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Patel's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for the question and for discussing the issue with me previously. As he rightly says, even though it is rare, cancer is the biggest killer of children aged up to about the age of 15. The Government’s new 10-year plan for cancer care is under development. It will address the cancer needs of the entire population, including those of children. We also recognise the severe impact that cancer has on not only the patient but their family and friends, and are focusing in particular on interventions that support patients through difficult journeys of diagnosis, treatment and aftercare.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, research for finding new treatments for cancers, particularly childhood cancers, where the numbers are small, requires international collaboration. Some 42% of current CRUK clinical trials have international partners. The Government are consulting on clinical trials regulation and we have data sharing and protection legislation going through Parliament. Does the Minister agree that it is important that neither the regulation related to clinical trials nor the legislation related to data sharing should in any way jeopardise our international role in clinical trials collaboration?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for the question, which cuts across three of the priority areas in my ministerial portfolio: data sharing, the life sciences industry—in which clinical trials and research play a huge part—and international collaboration. It is really important that we continue international collaboration. However, one of the challenges we face is that we have to make sure that patients are comfortable with researchers having access to their data. As part of that work, we have called in civil liberties organisations to help us along that journey. So, while we encourage more people to share data, we have to make sure that they have those protections. We can have the best systems in the world, but, if people opt out, they are useless.