Getting a cancer diagnosis can be devastating. And when I was growing up, it often meant little hope of successful treatment or management. Modern research has changed that for many patients.
But there is still a long way to go. For some cancers much more research is still needed and too often treatment and care depends on where you live. That’s why I believe the new national Cancer Plan to improve diagnosis and treatment is so vital and I want to see it implemented here in Yorkshire as part of the Labour Government’s new action to rebuild our NHS.
The Cancer Plan is ambitious – it sets a target that by 2035 75% of cancer patients should be cancer free or living well after five years. It includes rolling out screening for lung cancer, better early diagnosis more scanners, faster treatment, new robotics and genomics, and more research too. And it means action to tackle the post code lottery because care shouldn’t depend on where you live.
For us in the Five Towns that also means we need more local GP and hospital appointments. Already in the last year, as a result of the extra government investment and reform, there have been 25,000 more NHS appointments at Mid Yorkshire Trust, covering both Pinderfields and Pontefract. I’m pushing for us to get more of the new neighbourhood health centre investment with added GP appointments here in the Five Towns too. Across the country the NHS has also recruited 2,500 more GPs, and 6,700 additional mental health workers, and ambulance response times were faster this winter than last year too.
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Alongside that there are areas where more research is badly needed. There has been too little research into brain cancer. I know the whole community will be thinking of Katie Synott and her husband Ryan Boyle after she devastatingly lost her battle with glioblastoma recently. As we think of their whole family now, we must make sure that there is a serious boost for brain cancer research in future so more young lives aren’t lost.
And we need to keep increasing support for hospice care for those at the end of their lives. All of us round here know how important Prince of Wales hospice is to local families at the most difficult of times. I’ve worked with them for many years including helping them get a fairer share of Yorkshire funding. That’s why I was so pleased the Government has given them an £80,000 spring funding boost.
Our NHS and local care services are vital and all of us round here depend on it. That’s how the 1945 Labour Government created the NHS nearly 80 years ago, with a simple principle in mind – that healthcare in the UK should be free at the point of use. Too often under other governments it has been run down or into the ground. That’s why the task of this Labour Government is to rebuild our NHS to make it fit for the future once more.