When one hears of elective surgery being put off, as happens every day in our hospitals, frequently they are cancer cases. There are further delays due to problems with acute beds being blocked. Something has to be done about freeing these beds in order that patients will not be contacted by telephone in the morning and told their operations for breast cancer, stomach cancer, colono-rectal cancer are off because every day matters. It is totally unfair on them that this is happening. This is the area where we, as legislators, are important and have to ensure there are no delays. We have to educate patients to go rapidly to their general practitioners and the centre of excellent primary health care in general. First, however, we have to ensure they will get a rapid appointment with a suitable specialist and, when an operation is considered essential, will be brought into hospital without further delay and will receive the cancer specific treatment they need as rapidly as possible. I frequently meet people who have had either radiotherapy or chemotherapy put off for weeks because there was no bed available for them in the hospital.