9. Member Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): Early Cancer Diagnosis

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:42 pm on 11 March 2020.

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Photo of David Lloyd David Lloyd Plaid Cymru 4:42, 11 March 2020

I'm very pleased to take part in this debate. Can I commend David Rees, leading off in this debate—a very important issue, and I agree with all parts of the motion—and just make three basic points in terms of, obviously, as David outlined, we need a new cancer strategy this year now to take over from the current cancer plan that's coming to an end? That's a given, I would have thought, although we would like to see confirmation of that. World-wide experiences recognise countries have to have a cancer plan, so let's make sure we have one going forward, because the current one stops this year.

The second point I would make is that lots of this is to do with diagnostics—the most recent developments, they tend to be expensive but they're good—and also workforce elements. Obviously, with the health committee, we've done several reviews over the last few years that have highlighted workforce concerns. We don't seem to have enough staff in whatever specialty, from GPs upwards, but particularly diagnostic staff as well—not just the lack of kit, now, but the lack of diagnostic staff. We saw that with the endoscopy review that we did. There are not enough specialist endoscopists. They don't have to be all medics; specialised nurses can do that. But whoever has got the endoscopy in their hands, we need more of them to be able to diagnose cancers, be they early or late.

And, obviously, it is important—. Sorry, Huw.