Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Services: Covid-19 Debate
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Robert Largan
Main Page: Robert Largan (Conservative - High Peak)Department Debates - View all Robert Largan's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Services: Covid-19
Robert Largan Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) on securing this timely and important debate. I pay tribute to the work that he and the all-party parliamentary group have done on this issue over a number of years. It has been really important.
We have come a long way in this country on breast cancer survival rates over the past few years, but about 11,500 women still die every year from the disease. We know that early diagnosis is absolutely vital when it comes to survival rates, so I am very concerned about the impact that the pandemic has had and continues to have.
In my constituency in the High Peak, a commissioning decision was recently taken by NHS Midlands to withdraw the breast cancer mobile screening units from three towns—Buxton, Chapel-en-le-Frith and New Mills—and to move that service outside the High Peak to Bakewell. This is no slight at all on Newholme Hospital in Bakewell and the fantastic staff there—I pay tribute to them and to all the NHS staff working in breast cancer screening services—but there is a question of accessibility. The Peak district does not have the best roads; we are heading into winter, when those roads become even more inaccessible. Public transport is patchy at best, and I am incredibly concerned about how many women will feel unable to make appointments if they have to go all the way to Bakewell. I am alarmed about this decision, and it is one that I disagree with. I really hope that we can reinstate the mobile screening units in the High Peak as soon as possible. My message to the Minister is clear: we desperately need to get those units reinstated, and I hope that I can meet her to talk about this in the near future.