John Baron MP raises cancer at the Westminster Health Forum

MP highlights the importance of earlier diagnosis

John Baron MP has addressed a senior-level seminar on cancer organised by the Westminster Health Forum. John was invited to make one of the keynote speeches, along with Ciarán Devane (Chief Executive, Macmillan Cancer Support), which he used to raise the importance of earlier diagnosis and described what the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer (APPGC) was doing to put pressure the NHS to improve its performance in this area.

Afterwards, John said,

“It is essential that the NHS improves its record on earlier diagnosis, as late diagnosis makes for poor survival rates. Our poor performance in this area is one of the main reasons our survival rates lag significantly behind our neighbours on the continent – we would save between 5,000 – 10,000 lives each year were we to meet international averages.”

“The APPGC has been pushing hard to persuade the NHS, and the local NHS in particular, to knuckle down on earlier diagnosis. This has included placing survival rate indicators in the frameworks which hold the NHS to account. The recent publication of one-year survival rates, broken down locally, now reveals how well each individual CCG is doing at earlier diagnosis. This transparency is a powerful tool – and we must use it.”

“However, the APPGC has concerns that the system does not compel CCGs to abide by this local survival rate data. For this reason, we are calling for the inclusion of one-year survival rates in the NHS Delivery Dashboard, which can bring real pressure to bear on underperforming CCGs.”