Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend again highlights where we are investing, upgrading machines and putting in money, effort, people and resources to make sure that we can achieve world-class cancer outcomes. As I say, we are on course for record outcomes in terms of patients surviving 10 years beyond a diagnosis. However, we always want to do better, so I applaud the local efforts that she has highlighted.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

I would like to reiterate what the Minister said. As I sure my hon. Friends would agree, our thoughts go out to everybody in Brussels at this time.

Will the Minister please inform the House of what consideration has been given to bringing the bowel cancer screening age into line with that in Scotland—at 50 rather than 60—following the recent Westminster Hall debate on this subject?

[Jane Ellison]

We had an excellent debate. An extraordinary number of colleagues turned up in Westminster Hall, a debate of just half an hour, demonstrating how many people are interested in this important subject. I outlined in my response to the debate the fact that we have the bowel scope screening programme and the bowel cancer programme in England, which complement each other. The result, particularly of bowel scope screening, is that we can actually make a huge impact on mortality rates for people who are caught. I went into that in more detail in my response to the debate, but that is the key to making sure we identify more people and stop them dying from this dreadful disease.