Local MP, Steve Brine, has welcomed the new plan for cancer as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care launched a new 10-year ‘national war on cancer’.
During an urgent question in the House of Commons, on elective care recovery, Steve praised the Government for taking action on cancer, whilst also seeking clarity on how far the plan will go.
Huge strides in cancer care have been made in recent years – in the last 15 years, one-year survival has increased by more than 10% and for patients diagnosed in 2015, their survival rate was 72% after one year.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly had an impact. While dedicated NHS staff ensured cancer treatment was maintained at 94% of pre-pandemic levels and 95% of people starting treatment did so within a month, there were nearly 50,000 fewer cancer diagnoses across the UK during the pandemic, including 34,000 in England (March 2020 to November 2021).
Highlighting diagnosis, Mr Brine spoke in the House; “Can I ask my Honourable Friend to look further upstream of right now and ask him how the, very welcome, ten-year cancer plan announced on Friday will improve our health and prevent more complex interventions in the future?
And could he just confirm to me that the 28-day cancer standard, which does sound familiar and I left office three years ago next month, is a maximum not a target. In other words, we always want to do much, much better because we know the quicker it's caught the better the outcome.”
Edward Argar, the Minister responding on behalf of the Department for Health, reiterated support for the plan stating; “He's absolutely right in the point underlying what he said, which is that the earlier the diagnosis, the better the outcomes as a rule in cancer treatment and yes, we set targets, but we always hope to exceed them.
It has been incredibly challenging to do that over recent years and that's why we as a government are investing not only the resources in this, but putting in place the reforms that are needed to achieve these targets.”
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