Childhood Cancer Outcomes

Will Quince Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Will Quince)]

I thank the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) for securing this important debate. I begin by sending my sincerest support and sympathy to Ethan’s family and every family involved in the work of Alice’s Arc. Their mission to find a cure and kinder treatment for rhabdomyosarcoma is one that I am sure the whole House can support.

As the hon. Lady rightly mentioned, September was Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and I think I speak for the whole House when I say that our thoughts are with every family touched by childhood cancer, particularly those who have felt the bitter grief of losing a child. I commend the efforts of so many to bring light to the darkest of situations and support families in need, including the hon. Lady, who made such a powerful and emotive speech. I also join her in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) for her tireless efforts to improve childhood cancer care.

I want to assure the House and all families affected that cancer services for children are an absolute priority for this Government. Working alongside the NHS, we have three priorities to improve childhood cancer outcomes: improving early diagnosis, delivering more research and driving progress in genomic medicine. Let me take each one in turn.

First, improving early diagnosis will give more children the best chance of beating cancer. The NHS is working to deliver the ambition it set in its long-term plan to diagnose 75% of cancers at stages 1 and 2 by 2028. Achieving that will mean 55,000 more people surviving cancer for five years or more. That is why the Government are investing more than £2.3 billion to transform diagnostics services. Thanks to that investment, we have opened 123 new community diagnostic centres, giving millions of patients the chance to access quicker, more convenient checks outside of hospitals, and we are on track to open 160 CDCs by March 2025.

In this year’s operational planning guidance, NHS England announced £390 million of funding to cancer alliances in each of the next two years to support the operational priorities for cancer treatment capacity. That includes commissioning key services in early diagnosis and supporting systems to develop local cancer plans. We are now expanding direct access to diagnostic scans across all GP practices, helping GPs to recognise cancer symptoms, cutting waiting times and speeding up diagnosis.

Secondly, as the hon. Member for South Shields rightly pointed out, delivering more research is key to understanding the causes of cancer and increasing survival rates further. Over the past five years, the National Institute for Health and Care Research has invested almost £14 million in 38 research projects into childhood cancers. Alongside Cancer Research UK, health Departments across the UK are jointly funding a network of 18 experimental cancer medicine centres, collectively investing more than £35 million between 2017 and 2022.

Our world-leading scientists and clinicians are driving the discovery, development and testing of new treatments. That includes the paediatric network that the National Institute for Health and Care Research co-funds with the Little Princess Trust, which is dedicated to early-phase research on childhood cancers. NHS children’s cancer services are provided by highly specialist principal treatment centres that manage care through multidisciplinary teams across diagnosis, treatment and research, making research breakthroughs available to every child.

Turning to our work to drive progress in genomic medicine, the UK is a world leader in that sector, and cutting-edge research already benefits children with cancer. However, the Government are committed to going further: our priority is ensuring that all children with cancer get access to genomic medicine. The NHS now offers all children with cancer whole-genome sequencing to enable comprehensive and precise diagnosis, along with personalised treatments. In July this year, the Government announced a multi-year partnership agreement with the pharmaceutical giant BioNTech, which will accelerate that company’s clinical trials here in the UK and could provide up to 10,000 patients with personalised cancer immunotherapies by 2030. It will work with NHS England’s new cancer vaccine launchpad to improve access to treatments and trials. This Government will continue to support groundbreaking genomic medicine to give children with cancer the high-quality personalised treatments they deserve.

Children with cancer also deserve a supportive experience in hospital, as do their families. That is why I am pleased that NHS England is working with the Starlight Children’s Foundation charity to review and improve play facilities and guidance to hospital trusts, and we will learn from the first under-16 cancer patient experience survey. More than three quarters of children with cancer said they are looked after very well by healthcare staff, and almost 90% of parents or carers rated the care their child received as eight or more out of 10. That shows what our brilliant cancer workforce does so well, and also where we have more work to do.

Once again, I thank the hon. Member for South Shields for tabling this vitally important debate.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I sense that the Minister is coming to the end of his comments. I have listened carefully to him, but he has largely referred to funding and research into cancers overall. He knows full well that childhood cancers are distinct from adult cancer, so could he offer us any clarity on how much money goes into childhood cancer research, and what the workforce plan is for those specialists working in paediatric cancer?

[Will Quince]

I am very happy to take both those questions. First, in relation to childhood cancer research specifically, my officials in the Department are working really closely with the National Institute for Health and Care Research to set up an expert roundtable on childhood cancer research. Many trials will be applicable to both adults and children, but by their nature, some will need to be childhood cancer-specific. I welcome that important initiative, which is designed to encourage more research into cancers affecting children.

The Government do not, in effect, commission research directly. Bids are made to NIHR; around £1 billion a year is spent directly on research through NIHR, but it is reliant on those bids. That is why it is so important that we get more bids for research into childhood cancer coming forward.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Minister for his response and also for his clear understanding of the issue. We appreciate his words. On Saturday past, we had our party conference. There were a number of stalls, including for a cancer charity. It has a charter, and at the top of that was a target that 70% of those who have cancer will survive and heal. Can the Minister indicate whether he and his Department have the same ambition to secure 70% of people with cancer surviving and being cured, especially children?

[Will Quince]

Where I very much agree with my hon. Friend is that research is so much at the heart of this matter. The hon. Member for South Shields asked specifically how much funding is going directly into childhood cancer research, and my understanding is that over the past five years, the National Institute for Health and Care Research specifically has funded 38 projects relating to childhood cancers and has spent just under £14 million on research specifically into childhood cancers. She is absolutely right that children’s cancer risk factors are not very well understood, as this group of cancers is rare and diverse—I think it makes up around 1% of all cancers. That is why the expert roundtable on childhood cancer research is so important, and I will continue to consider with colleagues across the House what more we can do on this important matter to get more bids for funding specifically for research into childhood cancers to come forward.

A handful of months ago, the Government published the NHS long-term workforce plan. Although it does not go into specific detail on speciality or cancer services, we are working closely with cancer charities and others to determine what the requirement would be going forward. To ensure that we get it right, I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady and any others with an interest in this area to feed into the team looking at implementation of the NHS long-term workforce plan.

I again thank the hon. Lady for tabling this vital debate, and I thank all Members who have contributed today. Families who have been affected by childhood cancer have a right to know that the Government and everyone across this House stand with them. I assure the House that improving childhood cancer outcomes is a top priority for this Government and for me personally. I will continue to work with the NHS to ensure faster diagnosis, further and broader research and greater access to groundbreaking treatment. I assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the House that we will leave no stone unturned in our mission to beat cancer.

Question put and agreed to.