Health: Secondary Care

Lord Winston Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am not aware of any disincentives in that sense. Indeed, the rate of referrals has gone up dramatically, particularly for cancer, which seems to indicate that GPs are not afraid to refer when they feel that they need to.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, governance, early diagnosis and visits to the general practitioner are all very well but, as the noble Earl will understand, many cancers such as lung cancer, which has just been mentioned, and pancreatic cancer depend on relatively silent tumours that are not going to be diagnosed on a clinical basis anyway. Surely the need is for markers for these diseases. What are the Government planning to do to increase research in this area, to ensure that we have markers for these diseases?

[Earl Howe]

Cancer research is a major priority for my department. Investment in cancer research by the National Institute for Health Research has risen from £101 million in 2010-11 to £133 million in 2012-13. However, that is only what my department is doing. As I am sure he is aware, a whole range of work is going on across many different types of cancer, which we regard as a priority.