Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 1:42 pm on 4 November 2020.
We are working with our clinicians and our services to restart a range of cancer services. You'll be aware that we've restarted screening services. You'll be aware that referrals in cancer are up to normal levels. The challenges we have are that we are now seeing more people presenting even later than before, and, pre-pandemic, part of our concern was that people, particularly in our less well-off communities, were more likely to present with cancers later, and to need more radical treatment options and to have less likely positive outcomes.
When we do publish the information that I've indicated we will do, we'll continue to publish, for example, the single cancer pathway that we are introducing, and that will become, in the new year, the single measure that we use, as opposed to the older and less accurate measures that we currently have. And that will give people an honest appraisal of both where we are, and, indeed, as we need to plan for the resumption of services after the pandemic. And key to what we're saying here today, and on every day as we come back to this, will be the need to consider how we all behave to both reduce the harm from coronavirus and to recognise that if coronavirus gets out of control again, then we will find a direct impact on non-COVID care, and that will obviously affect cancer services, just as it is, I'm afraid to say, across our border too.