The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. The two statistics I rattled out—and not for the first time, even today—are the 60% drop in referrals and 20% drop in treatments beginning. The referrals one is broadly down to people not coming forward because they do not want to trouble the NHS. It is massively important to amplify what I know Ministers and clinicians are saying around the country, which is that if people are even the remotest bit concerned, they must come forward and seek advice, because the NHS undoubtedly is open. Some of the cancellations of treatment have been for other reasons, such as not having had full access to kit and, in the early days, NICE advising against it taking place when perhaps it could have done. However, I am pleased that the Government have managed to make significant progress in recent weeks.
The statistics on the reduction of people coming forward for treatment and for referral, and on the reduction in treatments beginning, are, of course, all true, yet the numbers of people with cancer at this point is the same as it would be in any other year, give or take. That tells us that we are in danger of seeing a serious peak in late diagnoses, and, therefore, sadly, in people tragically not living as long as they would have done otherwise.
In the context of the Bill, removal from the European Medicines Agency would do our people harm. Choosing to go from being part of an organisation that represents 25% of medicine sales on the planet to one making up only 3% will inevitably see us fall down the list for those applying for new drugs and treatments. In that case, the wisest course of action would be to negotiate associate membership of the European Medicines Agency. We must be at the cutting edge of cancer treatment, yet we will hobble ourselves if we reduce access to new treatment and scale back research and development.
Of course, Britain’s membership of the EMA is no guarantee of progress. I am thinking particularly of radiotherapy technology. NHS England has just agreed to roll out the commissioning of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy—SABR technology—and to bring it forward by a year. This comes after an arduous 10-year battle for this precise and powerful treatment to be rolled out to every cancer centre in the country. To be clear, 100% of radiotherapy centres are equipped to give this treatment, but only half of them are currently commissioned to do so. I am very grateful to Ministers and in particular to the one in her place, who intervened to ensure that all centres will now be commissioned. We are very grateful.
The reason given time and again by NHS England for wasting this resource was that it did not have enough data. This is relevant, because this was a treatment being used effectively across Europe with significantly improved outcomes. If this is the case when the data is there, I dread to think what the impact will be of having reduced access to data on medicines and medical devices when we are outside the EMA.
If effective and co-ordinated implementation does not follow regulation, regulation becomes utterly meaningless. Many colleagues have rightly raised concerns about maintaining access to the best possible treatment for those in the UK, but we also need to recognise that countless people are not able to access the treatment that they need and that has been approved even now. The idea that this could be further curtailed and cost further lives is deeply troubling. Indeed, it would be an outrageous injustice. The process between the approval of a medicine or medical device and its use to treat illness and save lives is hugely important, as the experience of the development of radiotherapy in this country proves.
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A lack of co-ordination, damaging bureaucracy and the absence of consistent investment have left us lagging behind Europe in a treatment for which, ironically, we lead the field in innovation. Our machines should be replaced every 10 years, but a survey undertaken by Action Radiotherapy revealed that there are machines up to 17 years old. Replacing them would work out at about £400 per patient—the same as a single night’s stay in hospital. This is a highly curative cancer treatment, so I call for swift action to ensure that we stop lagging behind. A ring-fenced central funding pot to replace machines more than 10 years old would secure fast and uninterrupted patient treatment, solve the £140 million backlog in machine replacement costs and secure the treatment’s future.
Recognising the gap between approval and access also means recognising that access to treatment can mean physical access. People in Westmorland face a three-hour round trip for radiotherapy, and many of the elderly and extremely ill choose not to make the trip at all—they choose shorter lives because they cannot face the longer journeys. It is essential that we invest the £250 million for new network treatment delivery centres to bring treatment closer to home and avoid long travel for the 3.5 million people who live farther away than the recommended 45-minute maximum travel time. For us, that would mean a long-overdue radiotherapy centre at the Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal.
Access to innovative treatment is essential, and it must be in no way be diminished at the end of the transition period. However, that is only half the picture: access and approval must be followed by a co-ordinated and effective roll-out to patients. We cannot tolerate red tape leading to life-saving innovation being left unused in hospitals, just as we cannot risk having reduced access to those innovations in the first place.
If we claim to value the lives of the British public, we owe it to them to get this right and ensure they have easy access to the best and most effective treatment. That means ensuring a close deal with our neighbours and tackling our home-grown bureaucracy, which is more than capable of stifling innovation and costing lives.