‘Very stoical’ Welsh population who ‘don’t bother the doctor’ leading to poorer cancer survival rates says First Minister

A “very stoical” part of the Welsh population who “don’t want to bother the doctor” is one reason why cancer survival rates are not as high as hoped for in Wales, the First Minister has said.

Mark Drakeford said that the country’s industrial heritage and “late presentation” were among the reasons why cancer rates were lower when quizzed by Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price in the Senedd.

Earlier this month a study in The Lancet showed that over 37% of cancers in Wales were diagnosed as a result of admission to emergency departments.

“We have some very stoical parts of the Welsh population who don’t want to bother the doctor and who live with things that they think are just chronic conditions that are part, for example, of the process of getting older,” Mark Drakeford said in the Senedd.

“The thrust of the system in Wales is to try to persuade people to present early and then to make sure that we equip our GP population to be able to identify those very early signs—not easy to do.”

‘Missed targets’

Adam Price had earlier renewed his party’s calls for a new, comprehensive cancer strategy for Wales, with a “new, urgent focus on early diagnosis and detection.”

“All the cancer charities in Wales are telling us that we need a new urgent focus on early diagnosis and detection. But they say that this needs to be put at the heart of a new, comprehensive cancer strategy for Wales, in line with the recommendations of the World Health Organisation,” he said.

“Welsh Government have previously argued that the various existing documents – including today’s planned care statement which includes a key cancer target – amount to a strategy.

“But missed targets – even before the pandemic – the fact that the cancer mortality gap within Wales between deprived and affluent areas is worse now than it was twenty years ago, and the fact that a recent Senedd Committee report testified that people with cancer in Wales are being forced to go private, suggests that urgent review is needed.

“Even if you can maintain – against everything every cancer charity in Wales is saying – that we do have a cancer plan, that strategy is failing. We need urgent action if we are to avoid, in the future, thousands of preventable and premature deaths amongst cancer patients in Wales.”

‘Difficult’

Mark Drakeford said that one-year survival rates and five-year survival rates from cancer in Wales had improved consistently in recent years.

“They may still not be where other countries are able to achieve things through their health system, but the system in Wales has been gaining ground in survival rates over a number of years,” he said.

“There are many reasons why survival rates are not where we would wish them to be in Wales. That includes our industrial heritage and its impact on the health of people, it includes, particularly, late presentation.

“It is very difficult to obtain the survival rates that we would like to see when so many cancers in Wales only become apparent when they have already developed to a point where the techniques of intervention that would be available at early stages have already been passed by.”