This week, to mark World Cancer Day, I joined Cancer Research UK campaigners at a special event in Westminster focused on saving more lives from cancer.
World Cancer Day is held every 4th February and brings people together across the globe to raise awareness and drive action on one of the biggest health challenges of our time. With more than six million new cancer cases expected in England by 2040, the need to act has never been more urgent.
Cancer affects nearly one in two people in the UK during their lifetime and every family is touched by cancer in some way, which is why uniting to beat it matters so deeply. At the event, I spoke with Cancer Research UK campaigners about the action needed to tackle long delays in cancer diagnosis and treatment, which can cost lives. My mother died of lung cancer at just 62 and so I know that cancer waiting times can be literally a matter of life and death. In Chesterfield, there are around 290 cancer deaths every year. While survival rates have doubled in the UK over the past 50 years, there is still much progress that needs to be made to help us keep pace with improvements in other countries and ensure that fewer families suffer the agony of premature death.
This week’s event was perfectly timed to coincide with the Government’s announcement of new measures as part of the National Cancer Plan for England, which aims to transform cancer care over the coming years.
Patients will receive faster diagnosis, quicker treatment, and the support to live well with cancer under the Government’s landmark plan, published today. The NHS has not met its central cancer performance target since 2014. But we expect that to change under Labour’s plan: all cancer waiting time standards will be met by 2029. 75% of patients diagnosed from 2035 will be cancer-free or living well after five years, translating to 320,000 more lives saved over the lifetime of the plan.
I will continue to work with campaigners, clinicians, and colleagues across Parliament to push for the action and investment needed to ensure the National Cancer Plan delivers for patients.
I also want to use World Cancer Day to mark the importance of good palliative care. Everyone in Chesterfield will be aware of the current financial struggles at Ashgate Hospice. I have helped convene a very positive meeting today with the Minister for Care, Stephen Kinnock MP, other Derbyshire MPs, senior management at Ashgate Hospice and representative from the Integrated Care Board, to try and resolve the ongoing funding dispute and hopefully develop a plan to protect jobs and services. It feels like this meeting was positive step forward and both Ashgate and the ICB have committed to working together over the next month to hopefully reach an agreement on exactly what services should be delivered and what the costings might be.
Ashgate Hospice has provided exemplary care to thousands of dying patients in north Derbyshire since 1988. It must go on.
