Here follows a partly edited version

01.03.2006 - 6.19 pm

Mrs. Sharon Hodgson (Gateshead, East and Washington, West) (Lab): I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) on his excellent maiden speech. As a new Member—I was elected only last year—I know how scary it can be to stand here and make a speech for the first time. He did it with some flair and I am sure that he will never forget the occasion. Having all his pals around him is no bad thing. It is also rather nice that they seem to be staying to listen to my speech. I thank them for that.

I must continue with the happy tone by congratulating the Government on their fantastic record of investment in cancer services, especially the first cancer plan, which we have discussed. It was published in 2000—[Interruption.] I see that some of the Liberal Democrats are leaving now. The plan has meant that more funding than ever has been pumped into cancer services—an extra £280 million in 2001–02, increasing to £570 million in 2003–04. I do not have the most recent figure but I am sure that it is even higher.

I must also draw attention to our fantastic record on waiting times, which have been reduced to two weeks to be seen by a specialist, a month for diagnosis and two months for treatment. That cannot go without recognition in the debate.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, as a new Member, will be asked in what he will specialise. I gave many answers to that question as the weeks went on. I had no idea in what I would specialise, although I had many interests and many important matters came my way. However, the decision was taken out of my hands when my best friend, Joanne Smith, was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 34. At the time, she had a two-year-old and a seven-year-old, who are now a little older—one has had a birthday since then—but she was a young woman with a young family. The diagnosis was a tragedy, which has totally coloured my first year as a Member of Parliament.

Joanne was seen within 48 hours by a cancer specialist at my local hospital, the Queen Elizabeth hospital. Her consultant, Dr. Clark, has been incredible and her treatment has been fantastic. She had a double mastectomy and a terrible course of chemotherapy, which debilitated her. Nobody goes through chemotherapy lightly, but because she was so young she had to have such a high dose that it was shocking to see her suffer through it.

I immediately began campaigning for Herceptin and joined the all-party group that my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) mentioned earlier. I was keen to get my local cancer network—the northern cancer network—to reverse its decision not to prescribe Herceptin. It made the decision because the drug did not have National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidance. However, after campaigns by me and other hon. Members throughout the country and the region, the decision was reversed. When I asked why the network had reversed it, it cited the comments by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that lack of NICE guidance should not be an excuse for not prescribing the drug and that it was up to individual PCTs.

The PCTs in my area recognise that they have the freedom to make such decisions, but they do not do that in practice because they defer to the northern cancer network. When one questions the northern cancer network, one finds that it defers to NICE guidance. So, although individual PCTs can make these decisions, in practice they do not.

I have some ideas on funding, and I want to open up a debate on that whole issue. I shall come to that in a moment. We just have to keep pressing the individual PCTs and reminding them that they have the ability to take these decisions, regardless of the budgetary pressures that they are under. We are pumping in lots of money for cancer services, and they must spend it wisely. However, I am told that they often choose to spend money that they had allocated for cancer services on other equally pressing things. It is up to everyone involved in this debate to insist that that money is spent on cancer treatment.

My campaign with my friend got a lot of press interest, and the northern cancer network reversed its decision, on which I congratulate it. My friend started her Herceptin treatment two weeks ago. She is one of the first people in the region to receive it.

I want to talk briefly about brain tumours, which relates to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, whose predecessor, Rachel Squire, sadly died after suffering from a brain tumour. Some other famous people who have suffered from brain tumours are Bob Marley, Elizabeth Taylor, Mo Mowlam and Sir Stamford Raffles. Such tumours account for one death in every 100. Someone who is not as famous as those people is a constituent of mine who is quite dear to my heart.

His name is Fred Fergus, and I have been campaigning on his behalf for access to the drug temozolomide, which is awaiting NICE's approval. We were told that that would be decided by the end of the year, but I recently received some information on an appraisal consultation document—an ACD—put out by NICE. Apparently, NICE is recommending that the therapy should not be provided on a subsidised basis on the NHS in England and Wales for patients with newly diagnosed, high-grade malignant brain tumours. Perhaps the Minister will tell the House why.

Mr. Fergus is receiving his radiotherapy on the NHS and paying privately for a prescription of temozolomide. He says that it has given him his life back. There has been such a change in him in terms of memory since he has had access to the drug. Obviously, brain tumours affect the brain and memory, but with this drug he can function so much better, which is why I am so concerned about NICE perhaps not approving it.

I want to move on to another very sad case involving a bowel cancer sufferer. Bowel cancer is responsible for 50 deaths per day in the UK, and it claimed the life of my constituent, Jack Wilson, at the age of 66. He was a retired miner who was hoping to get the drug cetuximab on the NHS. Again, he was told that the drug was not approved. I have already mentioned the northern cancer network and the process we go through there.

I am short of time, so I should say that I want an urgent review of the funding of cancer treatments. As the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) said, there will be another drug, then another and another. More and more are on the horizon and we will have to try to fund them. Taxpayers are entitled to receive the best possible treatment and value for money from the NHS, so we need to examine how such treatments can be financed while retaining the tax base of the NHS and the principle that health care should be free at the point of need.

There is a specific problem with funding drug treatments—the hon. Gentleman also mentioned this—while they are licensed but before they are NICE approved. There is a strong case for a dedicated cancer charity that would fund specific cancer drugs during that interim period. Also, there should perhaps be a dedicated lottery card. I shall leave those thoughts with the Minister.

6.32 pm

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