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6.50 pm
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North): I shall be brief to allow the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) the chance to speak during the last 14 minutes of the debate. I was sorry that I could not speak before the Minister, as I wanted him to answer some questions, but he can no doubt write to me or intervene.
Like many other hon. Members, I welcome this debate and the report that has gone with it. The House should bear in mind the detailed work that the Select Committee on Health has done on the subject and the huge amount of evidence that it has taken from a wide range of organisations, which must add to the strength of that report.
We must also welcome the fact that this is the third time this year that the House has debated breast cancer. There have been two Adjournment debates--I initiated one and my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm) the other--and now this debate on the estimates and the Select Committee report. The fact that there have been three debates in a year seems to show growing understanding among many people that there has been a large increase in breast cancer and that its treatment here has a low success rate compared to that in some other countries. We must consider that treatment seriously, but we must also consider the causes of breast cancer. I draw the attention of the House to the powerful speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East (Ms Corston). She mentioned the contributions made by diet, stress factors and living conditions.
I was also impressed by the point made by the hon. Member for Colchester, South and Maldon (Mr. Whittingdale), among others, on the way in which nurses and doctors treat people. It is certainly my experience that anyone who goes into hospital for almost anything generally has high praise for the nursing auxiliaries and administrative staff, but criticisms of the way in which the medical staff treat them.
Often the medical staff are incredibly highly pressed, and they tend to leave the talking and caring role to others. Frankly, that is not good enough. Highly experienced medical staff, such as doctors, specialists and consultants, should spend more time with the patients if they can and should be straighter about what is wrong with them. They should also understand the degree of shock that a woman suffers when they tell her that all the investigations unfortunately show that there is a serious problem and that breast cancer is present. They should talk the thing through. It is an amazing shock, and although men obviously do not experience breast cancer, they have experience of other forms of cancer. Perhaps the Department could do something about attitudes and training. The Minister might like to reflect on that issue and think of doing some work or having discussions with medical colleges on that aspect of training.
I must make a brief point, but an important one. In my Adjournment debate on 22 November on breast cancer and its victims, I relied extensively on information supplied by Radiotherapy Action Group Exposure, which gave evidence to the Select Committee on compensation for victims of treatment. In some cases, we are talking of women who were treated with radiotherapy many years ago. It may well have cured the cancer, but the side effects and long-term effects have been almost as serious as what was there in the first place--the loss of the use of some limbs, permanent disability and a high level of constant pain, which is something that no one should have to live with all the time. Many of those women have suffered grievously and are still suffering. It is a humbling experience to talk to them about the ways in which their lives have been affected. In some cases, the problems occurred because of accidents, in others as a result of misdiagnosis, and some were caused because, at the time the radiotherapy treatment was given, those who gave it were unaware of its power, or of the importance of targeting the radiotherapy at the cancer cells with absolute accuracy because of the danger of wide-scale tissue damage to the surrounding area.
As part of their campaign for recognition and compensation, the women have been asking for a system of no-fault compensation. The Department has constantly replied that, although it understands their concern, it is not persuaded of the case. It has said that the women should take their cases to court individually. As has been pointed out in the debates, that is not a runner. Either one has to be very rich to afford to undertake a High Court action that can easily cost £200,000, particularly if it is not successful, or one has to be so poor and have such a strong case that one can get it all done on legal aid. Also, it is not a runner because the fault of an individual or organisation must be proved. That is the great failing because many of the people who gave the treatment could justifiably say that there had been a genuine accident on their part and could claim ignorance of the consequences of the treatment.
I have two brief questions for the Minister. First, when the then Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville), replied to thedebate on 22 November, he mentioned the examination and report that the Royal College of Radiologists was to undertake shortly. Many people were concerned that the college was undertaking the research and thought that there should have been an independent inquiry--perhaps semi-judicial--into the problem of compensation for victims of radiotherapy. He said that he would rather await the college's report. As it is now out, I would be grateful for the Minister's response.
Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South):
I appreciate the fact that I have a few minutes to comment and recognise that the response from the Department of Health included Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
I was happy to be a member of the Select Committee on Health which considered the problem. Interestingly enough, since the report was commissioned and the Government response issued, I have received one of the largest mailbags I have ever had. People have been writing to urge us to ensure that the Government implement the recommendations. The Government generally welcomed the report, with one or two qualifications, which I would ask them to reconsider. They can do something positive.
I regret the fact that I was not present for the central part of the debate--I was speaking to a professor from one of the medical schools in Belfast. I discovered to my amazement when I entered the Chamber that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) was talking about research in the Department and the fact
that the Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Services has not been appointing a director for research and development. There is supposed to be a fixed percentage of the budget for that. This year, no clinical research awards at all have been made in Northern Ireland. I ask the Government to reconsider the use of the funds that are available to develop that aspect.
I pay tribute to the work of Action Cancer, which has pioneered going out into the workplace and the rural community with a mobile van so that people can have mammograms taken in their communities without having to travel to Belfast. When we recently met the Minister responsible, he assured us that the claim that Action Cancer would have to foot the bill for that work-- it provides coaches, and so on--was false. I have discovered from the tissue typing pool in the city under the new trust scheme that it has to be paid by Action Cancer. The Minister assured us that that was false. I ask the Minister to press the Department, and perhaps particularly the Eastern health and social services board, to pay the bills for which it is responsible. It is an abomination to expect a charity to start doing that work over and above the other work that it is doing.
I sympathise with the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) who again raised the issue of RAGE, Radiotherapy Action Group Exposure, and put it on record that the arguments for specialist breast centres stem from that. It is obvious that some people who were not expert in the field gave wrong advice and, as a result, some patients live in perpetual pain and suffer from paralysis and disability. The argument is clear that specialist breast centres are needed throughout the nation. It is not only national centres of excellence for breast screening that are needed; we also need national centres for breast treatment.
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