Debate contribution: Breast Cancer: Waiting Times in Upper Bann

Debate contribution by Mrs Diane Dodds on 15 October 2024.

MLA

Mrs Diane Dodds

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

15 October 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Breast Cancer: Waiting Times in Upper Bann

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4593070

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so I am very glad to be able to bring the topic to the House this afternoon. Sadly, everyone in the Chamber will know someone who has been affected by breast cancer. It is a disease that can terrify women, but it is important that we continue to promote the message that early detection and treatment save lives. Breast cancer is the most common cancer globally, with around 2·3 million cases every year. It represents one in eight cancer cases in both sexes and a quarter of all cancers in women. Mortality can be as high as 70% in some resource-constrained settings around the world, but early detection methods continue to increase the chances of survival. When caught in its earliest, localised stages, the five-year relative survival rate of breast cancer is 99%. Northern Ireland should be striving for outcomes that are in line with the very best anywhere in the world. I welcome the Health Minister's recent commitment to move towards a more common approach for breast cancer referrals. It is important that all women have the same opportunity to be assessed and treated as early as possible. It has been clear for some time that there are significant variations across the different trusts. From my constituency perspective, the Southern Health and Social Care Trust has struggled. Yesterday, I took the opportunity to look up the most up-to-date statistics on the My Waiting Times NI website. For those who are waiting for an initial outpatient assessment with breast surgery sub-speciality in the Southern Trust area, the wait is five weeks for cases that are deemed to be urgent and 24 weeks for routine cases. Therefore, in this week of October 2024, if a woman requires surgery that is not deemed to be urgent, that surgery will not take place until the end of March 2025. That is a sobering statistic for the House to consider. For treatment that is subsequent to the first assessment, the wait for routine cases is 191 weeks, but the wait for urgent cases is 172 weeks. Appallingly, the waits for the most concerning cases, which are those that the consultant deems to be red-flag at assessment, are taking, on average, 39 weeks. That is absolutely unacceptable. Indeed, it is disgraceful. That is the length of a pregnancy, sitting waiting on surgery after you have been told that you are a red-flag case. If ever there was an example of why we need to sort out waiting lists and allow all patients the same access to services, surely that must be it. A number of different departmental targets on breast cancer have been in place for many years. One target is that at least 95% of patients with a suspected cancer who are referred urgently by a GP should begin their definitive treatment within 62 days. Again, the figures have been very poor in the Southern Trust area. For quarter 3 of 2023, the percentage of people who were beginning that treatment within 62 days was recorded as being between 10% and 30%. For the following quarter, it was 29%. In the first two quarters of 2024, it was only 22% and 36%. That performance trails significantly behind those of other parts of Northern Ireland. I appreciate that, in relatively small services, sometimes the illness of a key member of staff, a retirement or a resignation and the failure to appoint a replacement can have a significant impact. We must have the review as quickly as possible so that we can best serve women in our area. Another departmental target for breast cancer is that all urgent referrals should be seen within 14 days. Those are women who have found a lump in their breast and have been referred for an urgent appointment by their GP. The most recent data for those cases was published on 26 September, and it covers the three months from April to June 2024.In the Southern Trust, only 10·8% — one woman in 10 — were seen within the target time. That compares with 82·6% in the Western Health and Social Care Trust area over the same three-month period. Shockingly, and I widen the debate, in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust that figure was only 7·7%, and in the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust, it was 4·8%. Only 4·8% of women who discover a lump in their breast are seen within the required time. I think that we will all agree that, when we consider those statistics, women are being very badly served by that part of our cancer services. It has become a postcode lottery, and that is simply not good enough. This is a time-critical service, and this is not good enough. I am grateful to Cancer Focus NI, which assisted me in calculating the prominence of breast cancer locally. We are fortunate to have a wealth of excellent charities and third-sector organisations operating in this field and supplying many vital services. In the Upper Bann constituency, over 100 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer each year, with well over 1,000 living with breast cancer, and approximately 20 will die from breast cancer each year. For Northern Ireland as a whole, an average of just under 1,500 women and 11 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. One in eight women is expected to face a breast cancer diagnosis during their lifetime, and, on average, more than 300 women die in Northern Ireland each year as a result of breast cancer. The World Health Organization launched a global breast cancer initiative in 2021 to try to reduce mortality rates by 2·5% per year by 2040 and save 2·5 million lives. Its three key pillars of action were health promotion for early detection, timely diagnosis and comprehensive breast cancer management. Those are relevant for everywhere in Northern Ireland. Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer among women globally, and it represents approximately a quarter of all cancers that occur in women each year. With one in six cancer deaths in women worldwide, breast cancer is also the leading cause of cancer deaths across the world in women. We can all play our part in seeking to prevent future generations from experiencing breast cancer to the same extent. We need to dispel the myths and fears, counter any misinformation, and educate and help women to feel empowered to seek help. Supportive care, including psychological, spiritual and emotional, is required for those navigating a breast cancer diagnosis and for their families. We are fortunate that so many of our third-sector organisations help with that. Studies show that increasing physical activity can significantly reduce the risk of cancer by as much as 20%. Soberingly, more than one in two of us will be diagnosed with some form of cancer. Macmillan Cancer Support published analysis earlier this year revealing that cancer survival rates in the UK are as much as 25 years behind other European countries. The UK's survival rates for several common types of cancer are now only reaching what countries such as Sweden and Norway achieved in the early 2000s, and sometimes even earlier. If UK survival rates matched the best in Europe, thousands more people who are diagnosed each year would survive their cancer for at least five years. As well as showing considerably poorer survival rates for bowel, prostate and cervical cancer, the comparison shows that survival rates for breast cancer are lagging up to 10 years behind. When researching and working on today's debate, I was absolutely astounded by those figures.

There is nothing for any of us to be proud of when we hear them out loud. The statistics for the Southern Trust or, indeed, any other part of Northern Ireland cannot be defended in any way. No one in the House should even begin to try.

The review of breast cancer services is long overdue. I hope that no time will be wasted in bringing forward that review and its conclusions so that we can better serve women in Northern Ireland. Every effort needs to be made to fill outstanding vacancies in the Southern Trust. We need to make sure that breast cancer services operate at their optimal capacity. That will include other providers, including external providers, if they can assist us with waits in the Southern Trust or other trusts across Northern Ireland. One thing is sure: no stone should be left unturned to turn around that absolutely appalling situation. I know that you, Minister, will be alarmed by the statistics that emanate from your Department, and I know that you have announced a review. I encourage you, on behalf of women not just in Banbridge, Lurgan, Portadown and the area in between that I serve as a constituency representative but across Northern Ireland, to act decisively to turn around this appalling situation and make sure that women get the health service in relation to breast cancer that they deserve.

1,504 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:26 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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