Dame Siobhain McDonagh

Members from across the House will have their own experience of the NHS, but in my case, after caring for my late sister Margaret, who was diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumour in 2021, I can say with regret that the NHS failed her, forcing us to travel to Germany when she was at her sickest in order to find some treatment that might extend her life. In his summary letter published before the report, Lord Darzi told us that he was “shocked” by what he had found, but the 3,200 people who are diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumour every year are not shocked. They know just how bad things are. The report has told us that the UK has higher cancer death rates than our European neighbours. For patients with a glioblastoma brain tumour, that is news to no one. In comparison to 33 similar countries, the UK ranks 25th for five-year survival rates. Life expectancy for somebody diagnosed with a glioblastoma is just nine months. There has not been a new treatment in the NHS for more than 30 years, and the diagnosis is still a death sentence. In 2018, after Tessa Jowell sadly passed away with a glioblastoma, £40 million of ringfenced Government funding was promised for brain tumour research. Of that £40 million, just £11.3 million has been spent. Six years on, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research cannot even get the money out of the door. That is a real failure of Government. In June 2024, just before the election, a roundtable discussed how to spend £15 million of this money, and I have been trying to find out what it decided. Last week, I received a letter from Professor Lucy Chappell, the NIHR’s chief scientific adviser. Disturbingly, she told me that the NIHR largely funds research based on the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality, but it does not “allocate funding for specific disease areas.” The pharmaceutical industry does not work on glioblastoma. If the NHS also does not, who will? Do we keep on baking cakes?