Improving Cancer Outcomes — House of Commons, 2015-02-05
Topic: Health
Jane Ellison (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure and an honour to respond to an excellent debate in which we have heard distinguished contributions from both sides. This is the sixth debate in six months I have responded to on cancer, which demonstrates the House’s interest in this important subject. I congratulate the all-party groups on cancer, not only on securing this debate, but on everything they have achieved—I will touch on that at the end of my remarks. I sometimes think that with the expertise we have between us, and given the number of times some of us have met in these debates, were we not to be returned to this place, we could take our cancer awareness roadshow around Britain and do some good for the nation in another way. I shall try to respond to as many points as possible, and in some areas, I can update the House. However, I want to rattle through as many of the detailed points as possible, and I am sure that the shadow Minister, who I like very much, will forgive me if I do not counter his reiteration of the Opposition’s policy position with a detailed exposition of the Government’s. I will say only three things. First, I shall respond mostly to the Back-Bench contributions. Secondly, I do not recognise his figures on reduced spend, although I understand where they are derived from. Thirdly, when the NHS is bringing together its own strategy on cancer, I would question why we would want to come forward with another strategy. As the hon. Gentleman and others have argued, there is a remarkable degree of consensus about what needs to be done, and that is the area we need to focus on Obviously, improving cancer outcomes is a major priority for the Government. As the annual report on our outcomes strategy showed in December, we estimate that we will save an extra 12,000 lives a year by 2015, more than double the ambition of 5,000. That figure of 12,000 lives is the best estimate based on a projection using the latest survival estimates and assuming incidence is constant, which I think responds to points made in the debate. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) will be interested to see the detailed breakdown of how that figure is derived in the annexe to the fourth annual report on the cancer outcomes strategy Clearly that figure represents a great achievement by the NHS and it is good news for the thousands of people affected by cancer. Yesterday was world cancer day. A number of Members have referred to the one in two figure. I emphasise that, in the bylines to that headline, it made the point that that was only if lifestyle factors for many people were not adjusted. In fact, chances are considerably better if we could make some of those lifestyle changes. That was alluded to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), who as usual made a distinguished contribution. I know that he could not stay for the winding-up speeches My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) made well a point about prevention. Were it not unparliamentary, I might have run up the green Benches to embrace him when I heard his argument in favour of tobacco control and standardised packaging. I could not agree with him more. It was absolutely excellent. The "Five Year Forward View", which many Members have talked about, is the NHS’s vision of its future strategy. It was brilliant to see prevention right at the heart of that strategy; there is an entire chapter about it. Picking up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury, I have discussed this issue with all the major charities over the past six months and asked them to bring their considerable reach and influence to bear and to talk as much about prevention, given their authority on treatments and drugs. That is an ongoing conversation and we have seen some evidence of that. My hon. Friend is right to remind us that 80,000 people a year die in England as a result of tobacco. If only the women in the 1970s who started smoking knew what we know today; it is now two weeks since lung cancer took over from breast cancer as the biggest killer of women. We continue with our tobacco control measures with enthusiasm. We have a good record Of course we want to match the best in Europe, and there has been some discussion about that. We accept that cancer survival in England has historically lagged behind the best performing countries in Europe and the world. However, none of those international comparisons of cancer survival includes patients diagnosed after 2007. I delved into this matter in anticipation of the debate. We always cite the figures, but the reality is that because of the time lag, the five-year survival rates are essentially the gold standard—the benchmark against which the international comparisons are made. Therefore, because of the time lag in the five-year survival rates, we are not in a position to know exactly how we are doing compared with other nations However, I take the points made often and well by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay about the one-year survival data. It is inaccurate at the moment to use those figures based on patients diagnosed before 2007 as a measure of current performance in the system. The next best estimate of international benchmarks will be in 2017-18. Until then we will look at issues such as projection.