Ovarian Cancer

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) for securing the debate and to all other colleagues who have contributed. In my patch, in the southern end of Cumbria, we have run awareness campaigns locally with our general practitioners on the symptoms of ovarian cancer. Most people here have had a tale to tell about how ovarian cancer has touched them, and my motivation is very personal: my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in October 2002 and passed away in July 2004. She was one of the 75% of women who are diagnosed at stage 3 or 4. It is depressing that things have not progressed even since then. I go back to the cancer strategy and the Government’s announcement in January, with clear awareness and honesty that we are behind in survival rates for all sorts of cancers and that lack of awareness and lack of early diagnosis is the common theme in the failure to reach targets and save lives.

With regard to lack of awareness and lack of early diagnosis, ovarian cancer comes top of a pretty grisly league. It is brilliant that breast, lung and bowel cancer were included in the awareness programme, but I was dismayed, as I am sure many others were, to see that ovarian cancer was not. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr Brine) used the phrase, “low-hanging fruit”. If we look at the cold stats on how we can save lives in big numbers pretty quickly, ovarian cancer is potentially the low-hanging fruit.

I will repeat quickly some of the stats already used: 500 women die unnecessarily every year from the disease; a third of cases take longer than six months to be diagnosed; and 29% are diagnosed at A and E, which shows a complete failure of the pathway. It is the fourth biggest killer of women in terms of cancer. Although I am hugely grateful for the stuff from Target Ovarian Cancer and other ovarian cancer organisations, I repeat those stats because my mum found them on the web nearly 10 years ago—and they have not got any flaming better! It is utterly depressing that the statistics have not improved in that time.

As the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) rightly pointed out, survival rates are very bad, given what they could be. If women are diagnosed early, ovarian cancer is relatively easy to cure, with a 70% survival rate. Things are so bad that, by investing now, a huge difference will be made, and we will see lives saved in big numbers in no time.

As is the case for all people in such circumstances, my mum’s ovarian cancer was an appalling family tragedy, which, in many ways, brought us together. She had 20 or 21 months of extremely high-quality life following her diagnosis, and I pay huge tribute to the Macmillan nurses and to Rosemere trust at Preston hospital, who made her life bearable—indeed, made all our lives bearable, and sometimes even a joy. My mum was aware that there was a genetic potential, and her concern was for my sister, my sister’s kids and my kids. I would put a plea in, with the other pleas that I will make in a moment on behalf of all of us, for effort to be put into looking at diagnosis and at the potential for genetically tracking the disease early, before it even arises.

Our collective plea—I do not see any dissent here—is for the Department of Health to act quickly to make the issue a priority and for the Minister to meet Target Ovarian Cancer, the other ovarian cancer charities and members of the all-party group to discuss a practical strategy and to invest now in a targeted awareness campaign, without waiting for the results of the diagnostic test and the trial, which I think will arrive in 2015. Two thousand more women will die unnecessarily if we sit around and wait for that. We need action now, and I would like the Minister to undertake to do just that.