Ms Averil Power:

Other countries have real-time data on what is happening in cancer services, and that has always been a challenge in terms of planning now but was a massive challenge, as the Senator knows, during Covid-19. For example, in the NHS, our colleagues in Cancer Research UK, CRUK, and Macmillan Cancer Support were able to tell us they had real-time data the whole way through the pandemic on what was actually happening and how it was affecting cancer diagnosis. We did not have that and, as a result, we were planning blind without actually having proper data to use. The latest data the NCRI has published are from 2020. We get some more regular data in relation to the rapid access clinics, but that is only for prostate, breast and lung cancers, and in some ways those are the cancers that are better served because they have the rapid access clinics. The data we do not have are for the cancers with worse outcomes and pathways.