John Baron MP questions Secretary of State for Health over cancer reforms

MP says focus on outcomes must drive earlier diagnosis

Today in the House of Commons during Health Questions, John Baron MP pressed The Rt. Hon. Andrew Lansley CBE MP, Secretary of State for Health on how NHS reforms were going to best improve cancer care. John is Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer [APPGC].

John said:

“The APPGC and others lobbied for a focus on outcomes but the one and five year cancer survival rates may now be less statistically robust because of the smaller population sizes of Clinical Commissioning Groups [CCGs] compared to PCTs. Will the Government therefore give added priority to the excellent work of the NCIN in producing a metric of evidence-based measures to compliment the outcome measures – not replace them – so that we can hold CCGs to account?”

The Health Secretary responded by congratulating the APPGC on its work and agreed that such evidence-based measures needed to be produced in order that the performance of CCGs can be judged when it comes to the provision of cancer treatment.

John said afterwards:

“The local NHS must be held to account by evidence-based measures such as the extent of screening uptakes, treatment rates and hospital readmission rates. Together with a focus on local one year cancer survival rates, Clinical Commissioning Groups can then be objectively judged on their performance and tasked with improving when it comes to earlier diagnosis.”

“5,000 lives could be saved in this country if our survival rates matched the European average. The challenge is to improve earlier diagnosis, for far too many cancers are diagnosed too late. A focus on one year survival rates complimented by these evidence-based measures will help to drive improvements.”