Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I was terribly impolite; I should have welcomed the shadow Minister to his place in response to his first question.

Conservative Members seem to welcome the £26 billion investment and are happy to tell us how it should be spent, but they oppose the means of raising it. They cannot do all those things. They need to be honest with the country: either they support the investment in the NHS or they say they would cut it. Which is it?

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

2. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the condition of NHS hospital equipment.

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

The Darzi review made it absolutely clear that the NHS has been starved of capital. It is 15 years behind the private sector in its use of technology and we have fewer scanners per person than in comparable countries. That is why at the Budget the Chancellor announced an investment of £1.5 billion for capital funding, which will include investment for new artificial intelligence-enabled scanners, which will help tackle that backlog.

[Tessa Munt]

Residents in Somerset, and in North Somerset, my part of the world, recognise the £70 million that has been granted for new radiotherapy machines, as announced in the Budget, which will fund up to 30 machines. However, 70 machines will pass their sell-by date—their 10-year recommended life—by the end of this year. Will the Secretary of State and the Minister agree to meet Radiotherapy UK, which wants to highlight the huge cost benefits of having a more consistent, rolling programme of machine maintenance and replacement in the NHS 10-year plan?

Cancer Strategy for England

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

I thank my colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), for calling this timely and critical debate. It is good to see the Minister for Care in his place. I would like to mark the passing of many friends and some of my family who have lost their lives in a battle with cancer—a dreadful disease.

When I arrived here in 2010, my team and I started a five-year project tracking the use of radiotherapy in England, using freedom of information requests every six months to gather data on the availability and frequency of the use of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy in England’s then 51 cancer centres. It was not a pretty picture.

It is a pleasure to return to the subject of radiotherapy, about which many of my constituents in Wells and Mendip Hills care deeply, as do I. I recall that the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) and I had common cause. He represented a constituency in the north-east and I one in the south-west of England, the two areas with the greatest incidence of cancer per head of population. I hope and trust that every one of us is persuaded that when confronted with a serious problem or challenge, the odds of successfully tackling it are immeasurably improved if one has a plan. Without a plan, there is a serious risk of misguided or confused action. Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s founding fathers, reportedly said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” That phrase is as relevant now as when he said it nearly 300 years ago.

In England we are in a battle royale against this deadly disease of cancer, which will directly affect one in two of us and indirectly affect almost every one of us through our connections to friends or family. The evidence is absolutely clear: countries with a dedicated cancer control plan show a better overall five-year cancer survival rate. That is not anecdotal; it is the clear result of an international cancer benchmarking partnership study published in The Lancet Oncology.

A report in The Lancet Oncology by 12 leading cancer experts published a blueprint for a national cancer plan. Those experts were from Imperial College London, #CatchUpWithCancer and Radiotherapy UK, the Faculty of Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Institute of Cancer Policy at King’s College London. Their blueprint consolidates four reports published separately in The Lancet Oncology over two years, clearly outlining the necessary steps—a plan—to improve cancer outcomes.

The need for a plan is urgent. We had a 10-year one, which ran out in 2022. The then Health Secretary promised a new one. There was a five-month consultation, and then the next Secretary of State binned the whole idea. We are in a dire situation on the cancer front. Cancer mortality in this country is among the highest in the OECD. The key 62-day target to start treatment has not been met in England since 2015. When we consider that international research shows that a four-week delay in cancer treatment can increase the risk of death by 10%, this failure to meet that 62-day target has potentially fatal consequences.

If the Government are in any doubt about the consensus across the cancer care community on the need to get back to having a dedicated cancer plan, they need make only a cursory scan of all the charities and other stakeholders. Almost without exception, every organisation of any standing is in favour of getting a cancer plan and getting it fast. As is widely known, there are several main cancer cure pathways: surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Any cancer plan would obviously need to include all these pathways, but I would like to say a few words about radiotherapy in the context of any such cancer plan.

For clarity, I am talking about radiotherapy, not radiography. Radiography is vital. It is the use of techniques to scan an image to detect potential issues such as cancer. Radiotherapy is the use of high-energy radiation to kill cancer cells. If anyone is perplexed by my need to clarify that, they may understand when I say that some former Secretaries of State for Health and Social Care have been heard to confuse the two. I am confident that this Minister and the current Secretary of State will not suffer a similar confusion.

Radiotherapy offers technologically-advanced, cost-effective, personalised and precise solutions to treat more patients more quickly, more accurately and better. We have about 270 radiotherapy machines in England. Of those, 70 will pass their 10-year recommended life this year, and replacing them would cost £150 million. The Minister will know that this will be money well spent, as it takes people off the waiting lists and straight into treatment and gives them a life chance that is longer, and many will return to work, just like my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham.

Until recently, radiotherapy has been overlooked in both priority and investment, so I would like to pay testament to the impressive work of Professor Pat Price of Radiotherapy UK, the charity she founded and still leads. I also thank the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care for agreeing to meet Professor Price, representatives of Radiotherapy UK and me, so that we can all do what we can to help. I am sure that the Minister for Care will also be involved in that conversation. Professor Price’s relentless campaigning is putting radio- therapy back at the heart of the political debate. This was reflected in the recent Budget announcement of £70 million for new radiotherapy machines. That money is not enough, but it is a really positive start.

The recent Radiotherapy UK productivity report shows that smart investment in the sector could create 87,000 new cancer appointments, and the need for a new national cancer plan including measures to boost radiotherapy is clear. Only 27% of cancer patients in the UK can access the radiotherapy that they need, compared with the international recommendation of 52% to 53%. In total, 7.4 million people in the UK live in radiotherapy cancer treatment deserts. Lord Darzi’s independent review of the NHS revealed that more than 30% of patients are waiting too long for their radio- therapy cancer treatment.

Radiotherapy cannot be used on all cancers, but where it is appropriate a typical radiotherapy cancer cure can cost as little as £3,000 to £5,000, which is dramatically less than chemotherapy. The case for a national cancer plan is well made. I urge the Minister to bring the experts in and to produce such a plan.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I thank all hon. Members for adhering to the time guidance; that is really helpful. We now move on to the Front-Bench speakers, who will have 10 minutes each—

World Stroke Day

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) on securing a debate on this vitally important issue. It is important not only for her constituents but for her personally, I think, given her family circumstances; I know she really spoke from the heart and we appreciate that.

Good health should be fundamental to all of our lives, but sadly that is not the case for too many people. Over 100,000 people have a stroke in the UK every year—one person every five minutes. One third of them will be left with some form of long-term disability. As the fourth largest cause of death for adults, stroke has a devastating impact on individuals, their families and wider communities across our country.

For decades the NHS has served us well, and it is one of the proudest achievements of the Labour party that we were at the foundation of our NHS. Our staff have tremendous expertise and dedication; they are working hard every day to make a difference. But we have to face up to the reality that we have had 14 years of neglect and incompetence on the part of the Conservative party. We are now facing a very significant set of challenges in looking to get our health and care system back on its feet and fit for the future. That is the important context for this debate.

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton for giving me the opportunity to inform her and the House of the work that the Government have been doing since we came into office on 4 July, and particularly as today is World Stroke Day. The House will have seen that we have set out the three transformative shifts that we want to deliver in health and care, moving from care in hospitals to care at home, prioritising prevention over treatment, and advancing from analogue to digital solutions. These three strategic shifts will be the building blocks of our health mission, reducing time spent in poor health, tackling health inequalities and reducing lives lost from the biggest killers, which include cardiovascular disease.

We have to change the NHS so that it is no longer just a sickness service but a prevention service too. Prevention is always better and cheaper than cure. So we have to take preventive public health measures to tackle the biggest killers and support people to live longer, healthier lives. That is why in our health mission to build an NHS that is fit for the future, we have committed to reducing deaths from heart disease and strokes by one quarter within 10 years. The NHS health check, England’s flagship cardiovascular disease prevention programme, aims to prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes, kidney disease and some forms of dementia. Each year the programme engages over 1.3 million people and, through behavioural and clinical interventions, prevents around 500 heart attacks or strokes.

To improve access to and engagement with this life-saving programme, we are developing a new digital NHS health check, which will be ready for testing in early 2025. It will enable people to undertake a check at home. We are also trialling more than 130,000 life-saving heart health checks in the workplace. These checks can be completed quickly and easily by people at work so that they can understand and act on their cardiovascular risk and reduce their future risk of a stroke.

Around 50% of heart attacks and strokes are associated with high blood pressure. Community pharmacies are providing a free blood pressure check service for anyone over the age of 40. In cases where this results in a high reading, pharmacists can make sure people receive the right NHS support to reduce their blood pressure. We know that there is more to do to prevent the causes of stroke, and the Department and NHS England are working together to tackle this issue.

I am also pleased to announce that on Monday 4 November NHS England is launching a new Act FAST campaign to increase knowledge of the main signs of a stroke and to encourage people to dial 999 immediately in response to any sign. The new campaign builds on the success of the previous Act FAST campaign and uses a revised call to action:

“Face or arm or speech, at the first sign, it’s time to call 999”.

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

I pay tribute to a young man who lived in Shepton Mallet named Will. He spotted what was happening to his father. He is a young man with some difficulties himself, but he recognised FAST. He had seen it on television, and it is testament to the power of television and radio campaigns in making sure that those messages get through, because that young man has difficulties in communicating and moving, but he managed to get the rest of his family to realise what was happening to his father sitting there across the breakfast table. I just wanted to mark that.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the hon. Lady for that telling intervention. She is absolutely right: so much of the challenge and the opportunity before us is about how we use traditional media, social media, all forms of communication and awareness-raising campaigns and techniques. By definition, we are dealing with a situation in which speed is of the essence. It is truly a public health challenge, because it is only the public who can do what Will did in that circumstance. I certainly pay tribute to Will for acting so quickly and to the Act FAST campaign. I am sure Members will welcome that we are looking to build on the success of Act FAST and to replicate and renew it.

That campaign will run in England across TV, radio, social media, national press and ethnic minority TV and radio stations. The campaign includes specific communications for multicultural and disabled audiences. A higher reduction in mortality rates over the next 10 years will require a focus on NHS England stroke priorities, including rapid diagnosis and increasing access to time-dependent specialist acute stroke care. We know that so many deadly diseases can be avoided if we seek help in enough time. That is why we are working to improve access to treatments. Current targets include increasing thrombectomy rates to 10% and thrombolysis rates to 20% through facilitating ambulance service use of pre-hospital video triage and use of AI decision support tools for brain imaging in comprehensive stroke centres. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) has a keen interest in that issue.