3. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:47 pm on 21 May 2019.

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Photo of Mark Isherwood Mark Isherwood Conservative 2:47, 21 May 2019

Can I call for two statements, please, firstly on prostate cancer diagnosis and management in Wales? Twelve days ago, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, or NICE, updated their guidelines for prostate cancer diagnosis and management in England and Wales, recommending, amongst other things, that active surveillance should be offered as a primary option for men with low-risk localised prostate cancer. And the changes in the updated guidelines included the statement that men should be offered multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging, or mpMRI scans, before biopsy if they're suspected to have localised prostate cancer.

Prostate Cancer UK stated this breakthrough diagnostic technique should now be made available in all parts of Wales in the future, ending the current variation in access that has resulted in some men paying privately for scans. In March last year, NHS England announced it was launching a one-stop service using MRI techniques for timely diagnosis in England. Last December, NICE issued new draft guidance recommending pre-biopsy mpMRI for suspected prostate cancer. In January, the Welsh Government Minister for Health and Social Services, sitting to your right—Mr Gething—wrote to Assembly Members stating he'd asked all health boards to work with the Welsh Urology Board to ensure they have full implementation plans. In the same letter, he said that health boards confirmed that, at present, they deliver care in line with current guidance. However, when I had a meeting with Betsi Cadwaladr last December with a patient, they formally apologised for not having delivered care in accordance with NICE guidance for post-biopsy mpMRI and confirmed that they would be recompensing the men who had paid accordingly.

As Prostate Cancer states, mpMRI revolutionises prostate cancer diagnosis. The Welsh Government should therefore respond to their calls and those of others, including Tenovus Cancer Care, for the Welsh Government to ensure that mpMRI is now available across Wales. Although Mr Gething told the Assembly in March that when NICE recommends pre-biopsy mpMRI, he will expect all health boards in Wales to amend their pathways accordingly, he must therefore now go further and ensure that they do. I call for a statement accordingly on a matter that has occupied much time in this Chamber and generated a number of issues.