Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien]

I have given a flavour of the four different reforms we are making. To give the wider picture, there are more pharmacies in England than there were in 2010, there are 24,000 more pharmacists in England than there were in 2010 and we are putting in £645 million to provide a bunch of services that were not there when Labour was in office. We are very happy to take lessons from the pharmacy sector, but not from the Labour party.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

8. What steps he is taking to help improve the effectiveness of brain cancer treatments.

[The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Will Quince)]

We are working closely with research partners, and although I am pleased to say that more research is being funded, we want to see more research in brain cancer treatments. We continue to encourage more researchers to become involved in what remains a challenging scientific area, with a relatively small research community, but I am confident that the Government’s continued commitment to funding will help us make progress towards effective treatments.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I thank the Minister for that answer, and I am sure—and I know—he will take this very seriously. I have had three constituents in the last year come to see me who have suffered serious brain tumours, and they have had a very similar pathway, which is basically that after a certain point there is little the NHS can do for them. In particular, there is a shortage of neuro-oncologists, and one has spent their life savings on private treatment, even though that was difficult to find. Is there any hope, in the NHS workforce plan, that there will be more oncology training and more support for neuro-oncology, because the survival rate for this cancer is still woefully low?

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I am sorry to hear of the experience of her three constituents. There certainly is hope within the long-term workforce plan. As she rightly alludes to, we are reliant on researchers to submit high-quality research proposals, and that requires clinicians specialising in this area. It is something I take very seriously, and I would be very happy to work with her on it.