John Baron MP presses for cancer reform in Health Debate

MP welcomes increased focus on outcomes and raises questions over GP commissioning

Today in the House of Commons during a Debate on the Government’s proposals for the NHS, John Baron MP welcomed the Government’s White Paper ‘Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS’ which proposes that the NHS focuses more on measuring outcomes and which removes SHAs and PCTs in favour of commissioning decisions taken by GPs forming consortia. John is Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer [APPGC].

John said:

“It is frankly scandalous that the UK is still floundering in the lower divisions of the international cancer league. The APPGC’s report into Cancer Inequalities last year highlighted that part of the reason is that one year cancer survival rates are low in this country because we are poor at detecting cancer. Late diagnosis makes for poor one year survival rates. We are therefore delighted that the Government has adopted our proposal to introduce one year survival rate measures for individual PCTs which will encourage earlier diagnosis.”

“As for GP commissioning, there is certainly room for improvement in the present system when it comes to the commissioning of cancer services. There is often confusion about the roles of the SHA, the PCT, hospital trusts and cancer networks.”

“But any reforms need to ensure that the responsibilities of the NHS Commissioning Board, the PCTs and then GP consortia, are clearly defined to avoid fragmentation of treatment across the whole cancer pathway. Reforms must help, not hinder, working relationships between primary and secondary care doctors.”

“There is also early evidence of disparity of access when it comes to the Cancer Drugs Fund. It is important that the best practices from the interim drugs fund are applied uniformly when the £200million drugs fund kicks off in the Spring. Those with rarer cancers must also be better treated than they have been in the past.”