Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight this growing issue. One million people will have dementia by 2020, so we have to take it very seriously. It is not an either/or situation, though, because about 25% of patients in hospitals have dementia, and hospitals would like them placed in the community or at home, where they can be better looked after. This is one of those examples where, under the new reforms, we need much greater integration of services to ensure that those people are treated in the way they need to be.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

10. What recent progress he has made on improving early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)]

We are providing more than £450 million during this spending review period to help diagnose cancer earlier. In January, we are planning to pilot a general symptom awareness campaign that will be relevant to a range of cancers, including pancreatic cancer. Unfortunately, however, pancreatic cancer is often very difficult to detect in the early stages.

[Mark Durkan]

Has the Minister considered the early diagnosis summit report from Pancreatic Cancer UK highlighting that currently half of diagnoses are emergency diagnoses? It also makes strong cases for new referral pathways, risk assessment tools, direct access for GPs to investigative and diagnostic tools and the development of a National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence quality standard for pancreatic cancer. Can we expect progress on any of these before the 2013 cancer awareness campaign?

[Anna Soubry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work. I am aware of the campaign that he has been running effectively in his constituency, based on the experiences of one of his constituents. As I say, however, and as he will know, pancreatic cancer is, by its nature, a particularly difficult cancer to diagnose early. We will all, of course, remember the untimely death of Sir Stuart Bell. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed only very shortly before his death. I wish that were not as common as it is, but we are doing everything we can to improve screening. I thank the hon. Gentleman again for his campaign, and I would be happy to meet him to discuss it further.