Ms Averil Power:

The Deputy is correct about the public health campaign. We have partnered with GPs over the past year in encouraging people to go to their GPs. We will keep doing that and it really is the most important message. If people have worrying symptoms, such as unexpected weight loss, bleeding or a lump, the chances are it will not be cancer but it could be. If it is, it is critical that it is identified as early as possible so that people can get into treatment. With cancer timing is everything. The earlier it is diagnosed, the better the treatment options are. They are less severe, the impact on patients' quality of life is much less and their chances of survival are greater. The Deputy is correct that this is a key issue. It would be great if the committee were to send a strong message today to encourage people to present to their GP with any niggling concerns.

Regarding screening, most cancer diagnoses come through the diagnostic services. Most cancer diagnoses are picked up where somebody either attends at GP or an emergency department with a concern and then is referred through the pathways that were mentioned earlier and identified as having a cancer. Screening is also important in picking up precancers and in some cases cancers in the population of people who feel healthy, those who are not experiencing symptoms and think they are healthy. Through our screening programmes, for example through CervicalCheck, we can identify precancerous changes long before they go on to become problematic. That is why it is so important for people to attend their screening appointments.

It was really disappointing that screening had to be paused during the pandemic and a substantial backlog has built up. To clear that we need not just to return to the capacity that we had prior to the pandemic but to increase capacity so that we are able to get through that backlog as soon as possible. Pausing for the kind of period that we have had is problematic. The diagnostic services are at greater risk because of people with symptoms who are much more likely to have cancer but when screening is paused we are losing out on people who would have been identified really early and would not have developed cancer at all.