Political News: The covid crisis in cancer care

With one in two people getting cancer in their lifetime, Grahame Morris MP insists the Government needs an urgent strategy to address the backlog.

Tuesday 20 July marked one year of the Catch Up with Cancer campaign. The campaign was launched in conjunction with Craig and Mandy Russell, who lost their daughter Kelly at the age of just 31 to bowel cancer. Kelly was one of many whose life expectancy was tragically cut short after her cancer treatment was halted as a direct result of the Covid-19 response.

Alongside partner charity Action Radiotherapy, Radiotherapy4Life and the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Radiotherapy, supporters have lobbied the Government to boost cancer services to tackle the cancer diagnosis and treatment backlog caused by the pandemic.

Over the last year, supportive MPs, myself included, have asked oral and written Parliamentary questions, submitted and signed Early Day Motions, sent cross-party letters to the Prime Minister, Health Secretary and Chancellor, and met with Ministers to stress the need for urgent Government action.

Catch Up with Cancer produced a video to mark the anniversary, in which affected families, campaigners and MPs reflected on a year of the campaign and what still urgently needs to be done.

On 20 July, I joined Kelly’s father Craig Russell and leading oncologist and co-founder of Catch Up with Cancer, Professor Pat Price, to hand in a petition at 10 Downing Street calling on the Government to stop unnecessary cancer deaths caused by Covid-19 delays and to save thousands of lives. To date, it has been signed by nearly 378,000 people.

Government figures indicate there are currently at least 40,000 undiagnosed cancer patients. For every four weeks that treatment is delayed, survival rates reduce on average by 10 per cent. Worryingly, clinicians are already reporting that more patients are now presenting with late-stage cancers that have passed the point of being curable.

It is vital that the existence and scale of the Covid-19-induced cancer backlog, the disruption to the cancer pathways and the exhaustion of staff are recognised at the very top of Government.

A similar cancer strategy to that adopted in the national Covid-19 vaccination programme is needed to address the backlog. We need a new national plan, driven from a Minister and backed by investment in equipment, the workforce and changes to working practices, unhindered by bureaucracy and with a ringfenced investment budget.

The Catch Up with Cancer campaign has called on the Prime Minister to appoint a Minister with responsibility to lead and oversee a national cancer recovery plan and strategy for the future of cancer care, as has been done with the vaccination programme. That Minister should be supported by an independent expert advisory group of professionals, have the power to deliver investment and sweep away bureaucracy to unlock new capacity, and have the freedom of action required to develop a new approach to deliver a resilient cancer service that is one of the best in the world and not, as at present, one of the worst.

The cancer backlog cannot be tackled by expecting an exhausted workforce to simply work harder. We need an approach informed directly by the experience of frontline staff which commits to immediate funding for innovative short-term solutions to assist the workforce crisis, and which will pave for the way for the 20 per cent increase in the professionals needed to run the service.

In my capacity as vice-chair of both the APPG for Radiotherapy and the APPG for Cancer, I will continue to do all I can to lobby Government to take the urgent action that is needed. Without serious efforts to address the widespread disruption to the entire cancer pathway, we are facing the most serious crisis in cancer in a generation.

Grahame Morris is the Labour MP for Easington