Maggie Throup
Main Page: Maggie Throup (Conservative - Erewash)Department Debates - View all Maggie Throup's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(8 years ago)
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Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on securing the debate, which, as we have seen, is important.
Like other hon. Members in the Chamber, I lost a good friend to brain cancer. She was aged just 41, and it is no consolation to Joy’s parents or husband, or indeed to her good friends, that she had 30 years more life than Danny Green, who was spoken of so passionately by my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris). Anyone who has read the book by Danny’s parents, Chris and Lisa Green, cannot fail to be moved by their story.
A cancer diagnosis of any type is not news that anyone wants to hear, but brain cancer affects those under 40 disproportionately, and funding must be increased. The arguments for extra funding have been rehearsed many times: symptom recognition, early diagnosis, more investment in research, targeted treatment—they all take funding. However, as we have heard, it is also partly the responsibility of the research institutes to make their bids for funding in this important area. One problem is that it is not recognised that funding is there. We need to change that, and today’s debate will help. I hope that raising the profile of the need for funding for research on brain tumours, through the petition and today’s debate, will trigger more funding requests.
I have mentioned before in debates, and I am sure this will not be the last time I do so, that we must break down the silos that exist not only in the NHS and social care, but in research departments. It is important to consider the long-term cost to individuals and to the health service and social care if we do not invest in research. I request that the Minister look at the health economics to see what we can do and how much more money we can invest, because that will save so much more long term. The long term is important with regard to individuals and the cost of supporting them, because the nature of the treatment and the site of the cancer mean that many are left with lifelong disabilities and need a tremendous amount of support. Some of that support is offered by our amazing hospice movement, such as Treetops in my constituency, which provides incredible hospice care.
As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister outlined last week, spending on cancer research has gone up, but today the question is how that is distributed. I ask the Minister to do whatever he can to ensure that brain cancer gets its fair share of that increased spending and that it moves up the agenda, so that there is more investment in the research and development of new drugs and new ways of treating these people, who are predominantly young people with their lives ahead of them.