Brain Tumours in Children

Debate between Mary Macleod and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That sounds to me like a perfectly sensible suggestion. Again, it is a practical recommendation about how to deal with the fast-tracking from diagnosis to treatment, and again I am sure that the Minister has taken it on board.

The key thing that I have realised from being informed by HeadSmart and others about this issue is that the warning signs of a brain tumour—particularly in children, who are the focus of this debate—are not especially technical or terribly difficult to detect. We are talking about regular headaches or vomiting; difficulty in co-ordinating, balancing, or walking; blurred vision; and fits or seizures. Those are the most common symptoms, and they are signs that parents, doctors, teachers and children should be able to pick up on.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Raab]

Again, I will make a small amount of progress and then I will give way to my hon. Friend. As I was saying, those signs are symptoms that we should be able to pick up on, even if it is just to get them checked out properly so as to allay fears.

The scale of these tragedies led the Brain Tumour Charity to launch the HeadSmart campaign in 2011, to try to raise greater awareness and in particular to cut this life-threatening delay in diagnosis; there is also the issue of the delay between diagnosis and treatment. The thing that occurs to me is that we have seen truly amazing public awareness campaigns in this country. Think of the drink driving adverts; think of the campaigns in the 1990s to “Just Say No” to drugs; and more recently there have been the Vinnie Jones CPR adverts and the campaign to identify the early signs of a stroke, which is particularly germane to this debate. We are quite good at this work in this country, if we get hold of an issue and grasp it. HeadSmart wants to do something similar about brain tumours in children, but in a different way.

[Mary Macleod]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has taken up this issue. I have already been to see the Minister about it, and generally she has been very helpful on brain tumours. Does he not find the statistics that he mentioned about the delay of 12 to 13 weeks unacceptable? If there was some sort of public awareness campaign on those symptoms, more people might be helped to go to their GP earlier and then we might also need extra sharing of best practice among the primary health sector.

[Mr Raab]

My hon. Friend is right. It is particularly regrettable that we have such a delay in comparison with other countries if we could take simple steps, which would not even cost the taxpayer money, to reduce the delay through political will and co-ordination.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Macleod]

I have a quick suggestion based on my hon. Friend’s last two points. Might MPs perhaps help in the co-ordination effort? HeadSmart could send their leaflets to MPs to distribute to schools in their own areas. I, for one, would be perfectly happy to do so.

[Mr Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I am open to that idea, but the point is that councils have an internal mail system for delivering items to schools and nurseries. They are used to distributing in bulk, which is what we are talking about, to all schools. If we distributed the cards via MPs, I am not sure that it would happen in every case, although it certainly would for many. We need a comprehensive, co-ordinated approach, and, of course, our local councils have responsibility in this area.