Absolutely. And there are some exciting things going on. You know, it's exciting times to be both a specialised medic, and a nurse as well, these days. It is an absolutely exciting field, in the diagnosis, the management and in the treatment of cancer. But, obviously, there are lots of challenges, and that's why we need a new cancer strategy going ahead, because one of the big issues as regards early diagnosis is uncertainty. This new rapid diagnostic centre in Neath Port Talbot is absolutely transformational, because, prior to that, as GPs, we needed to have at least one red-flag symptom. You'd come to see me, you'd have to have either rectal bleeding, pronounced weight loss, anaemia or specific pain to tick a box—that's a red flag—to justify a two-week referral. Even if I had a gut feeling that there was something dreadfully wrong with you, but you didn't have one of those tick-box things, I couldn't refer you within two weeks. Obviously, you end up having a cancer then, and people look back saying, 'Ah, those GPs—rubbish.' Daily Mail headlines: 'They just can't diagnose people in time'. But we couldn't, we were not allowed, to refer within the two weeks unless there was a red-flag symptom.

If I thought you were ill, yet you didn't have a red-flag symptom, I couldn't do anything about it. Now I can. That's the beauty of this rapid diagnostic centre. It realises and it makes much of that gut feeling that we've always had as GPs. You know, by and large, after we've been in general practice for quite a while, we can tell whether there's something wrong with you, basically because we've known you for years—No. 1—and even though your symptom might not come up on some chart as being a red flag or the blood tests haven't changed yet, 'You don't look right', and that justifies—. That gut feeling, for the first time, has enabled us to make an urgent diagnosis. That is the leap forward that we've been asking for for years in GP land, to get early diagnosis. It's absolutely transformational.

Because ovarian cancer—we talk a lot about ovarian cancer—one of the earliest symptoms for that is bloating—bloating. Well, most of the adult middle-aged and elderly population are bloated at any one time. Yes, I could refer you all, but that wouldn't help the diagnostic rates of early ovarian cancer. But there's something additional with ovarian cancer—you are non-specifically not looking well to me, and I would get you seen. And it's only recently have we as GPs in the Neath Port Talbot area had that ability. We need it all over Wales, because in other places we're still waiting for those red-flag boxes to be ticked. We need that service now rolled out and we need a new cancer strategy. Diolch yn fawr.