Henry Smith MP has signed a letter to the Secretary of State for Health in support of Macmillan Cancer Support:

Dear Jeremy,

Ahead of the Conservative Party Conference, and as the party continues to move forward in the development of our General Election manifesto, we wanted to highlight our very strong support for your ambition to improve cancer outcomes so that they match the best in Europe.

We welcome your recent announcement of a package of measures to help improve cancer diagnosis and treatment. It was also very positive to see the emphasis you have placed on properly supporting people living with and beyond cancer to live well once treatment has finished.

As you know, at the moment 1 in 3 people diagnosed with cancer in England will die within a year. And this is at a time when cancer incidence is increasing. By the end of the next parliament we can expect that almost 1 in 2 people will receive a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime. As a party we must do all we can to improve this situation during this parliament, but also commit to tackling this issue head-on during the next parliament.

Macmillan Cancer Support takes the view that to improve outcomes for everyone diagnosed with cancer, our party should support the following recommendations:

• dramatically decrease the proportion of people diagnosed with cancer via an emergency route
• reduce variations and inequalities in access to treatment, particularly for older people
• make sure all people with cancer are better supported after treatment has ended.
  
  

We consider this to be a vital area of health policy where our party has already demonstrated it is keen to lead the way. With this in mind we would warmly welcome an announcement from you at party conference that the ‘best in Europe’ ambition is to be included in our election manifesto.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Uppal MP
Mike Weatherley MP
Andrew Stephenson MP
Dan Byles MP
Tim Loughton MP
Caroline Nokes MP
Henry Smith MP
David Amess MP
Roger Gale MP