Professor Mark Lawler:

To answer the first question on data, I will give an example that is very instructive of what we did in the UK on cancer and Covid data. At that time we started the work, nobody knew what would be the impact of Covid on cancer.

We decided to take a fundamentally different approach to collecting cancer data than had been done up to that point. We collected data in a deep way so that we got a lot of information but slowly. The problem was that when you looked at the national data on cancer, there was no evidence the pandemic was having any effect. The reason for that was data were six to nine months out of date whereas we went to a network of hospitals across the UK, including all five hospital trusts in Northern Ireland, and we were able to see what was happening in real time. That allowed us to highlight the problem, we brought that to the four chief medical officers for each of the nations of the United Kingdom and that prompted them to decide to restart cancer services because they could see that it was being made worse rather than better. That is a good example of how data allowed us to make changes and decisions.

Interacting with other countries was fundamental. I am a member of the board of the European Cancer Organisation and I co-chair the special network on Covid-19 and cancer. We have gone to 30 countries in Europe and we have a "Time to Act" campaign that we will launch in Ireland in January, to which we will invite all of the members. Importantly, we have translated that into 30 different languages and I am glad to say Irish is one of those. It is important to work together because it allows people to learn. For example, it looks like the Netherlands did better than a lot of other countries did in Europe so we need to examine why that is the case and if we can learn from that. We do not want to have point scoring around who is on top of the league but we want to find out if there was something the Netherlands did that was fundamentally different, and it looks like there was. The Netherlands set up diagnostic centres away from the hospitals quite early and it treated people for cancer in Covid-lite hospitals. That sort of thing is critical. It showcases that what one country has done is better and then other countries learn from that country. That constant learning and innovation circle is important.