Thank you very much for contacting me about a cancer strategy for Wales.
Like Cancer Research UK, my colleagues and I in the Welsh Conservatives are deeply concerned that the Cancer Quality Statement published in 2021 lacks sufficient detail to properly address both the backlogs created by the COVID-19 pandemic, and create significant improvements within cancer services.
You are right to suggest that cancer services in Wales were not up to scratch before COVID-19. Cancer waiting times had not been met since 2008, with 56% receiving treatment within 62 days across Wales in February 2020 through the Single Cancer Pathway. The 95% target waiting fewer than 26 weeks hadn’t been met for 10 years, with 83.4% waiting within this time in February 2020.
Furthermore, Welsh cancer survival rates have been stalling for many years. Prior to the pandemic, the Welsh Cancer Intelligence Unit’s data showed that Wales had the lowest survival rates for six cancers and the second lowest for three in the UK. Wales was already behind England, Scotland and Northern Ireland when it came to female breast, lung, colon, rectal and stomach cancers, and melanoma. It was also the second lowest in the UK for prostate, pancreatic and oesophageal cancers.
The Labour Welsh Government’s decisions during the pandemic have cost cancer patients greatly, and we are now storing up a tsunami of complex and advanced cancer cases which will be untreatable. Wales is now the only country in the UK without a cancer strategy and, with the number of people entering hospitals in Wales for cancer treatment dropping by over 40,000, it is clear that Wales is desperate for a proper cancer strategy to help services recover. Additionally, nearly 60,000 breast cancer screenings were missed during the pandemic, with one charity predicting almost 620 women are living with undiagnosed breast cancer.
You may be interested to know that my colleagues and I held a debate on cancer services in February, and we raised the point that the Quality Statement lacked detail and only sets minimum standards for cancer services. Welsh Conservatives also urged the Labour Welsh Government to publish a full cancer strategy which would set out how Wales would tackle cancer over the next five years. It is therefore shameful that the Labour Welsh Government rejected our motion for a cancer strategy. Rest assured, my colleague, Russell George MS, Shadow Minister for Health, will continue to press the Welsh Government on this important issue.
Thank you again for taking the time to write to me.