Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I suppose I should probably have declared an interest in this issue, because I am severely asthmatic and I do not get free prescriptions, but then again I do not think I should. There is a prescription exemption system designed specifically to assist people who are most likely to need support in paying for prescriptions: people on low incomes or in full-time education; the over-60s; people living with many long-term conditions; and people with an increased risk of illness, such as pregnant women. That is why 89% of prescriptions are dispensed without charge.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to improve cancer (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)]

Cancer survival rates are, thankfully, at a record high. Last year, the NHS carried out 53 million diagnostic tests, which is 53% higher than the number carried out in 2010, but we need to do more. Our aim is to diagnose three quarters of all cancers early, so that 55,000 more people each year survive cancer for another five years. To achieve that, we are radically overhauling screening programmes to improve access and uptake, investing £200 million in diagnostic equipment and accelerating the adoption of the most innovative cancer treatments.

[Mike Wood]

Bowel cancer claims 16,000 lives a year, which is 45 every day, yet just 55% of people in Dudley take up bowel cancer screening. What are the Government doing to ensure that more people take up this life-saving cancer screening?