Thread by @PandaScottish

[thread] I am going to quote from James Brokenshire MP

From his words on Hansard

I will juxtapose it with the words of the Prime Minister

RIP James Brokenshire MP

Condolences to your friends and family

"I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for your kind wishes and kind comments and the support that you have given to me as I renew my acquaintance with the ways and processes of the Back Benches. I very much appreciate your kind words and support."

"A week ago today, I had the privilege to speak in the brain tumour debate inspired by the incredible work of Baroness Tessa Jowell."

" It was one of those special moments in this House, which was made even more poignant by Tessa being present to hear the debate & to hear the tributes to her courage, her spirit & her determination to bring about positive change for people to live well with cancer for longer."

"The abiding theme through all that debate was a message of hope—hope for the future, hope for others, &hope in the face of personal physical adversity. There was also the overriding power of human kindness, compassion & love, & I want to return to some of those themes later on."

"At the end of August last year, I was out in Northern Ireland for a family weekend. It was a Saturday afternoon and we had had some fun exploring somewhere new with the kids and we were about to have some lunch. "

"I had just sat down when I realised that I needed to clear something from my throat, thinking that it must be a bit of food or perhaps some phlegm. The next think I remember is looking down and realising that my tissue had a bright red blob of blood in it."

"I felt my heart pounding and a knot at the very pit of my stomach at the shock. That is the thing about cancer: half of us will get it, and it can strike just when we least expect it."

"Of course, I could have left it; we blokes are pretty good at doing that. I felt fit and full of energy and I did not have any pain. It actually never happened again. I could have said, “It’s a one off; it’ll just sort itself out.”"

I did not, because deep down I knew that something really was not right. I trusted my instincts. I did not delay in going to see my GP. I trusted his advice in seeing a consultant when my initial X-ray was clear

“because we probably shouldn’t just leave it there.”

I trusted my consultant’s advice to have a bronchoscopy—a tube down my throat to have a poke around in my lungs—after my CT scan showed a small area of inflammation

“because we probably shouldn’t leave it there.”

At each stage, I could have left it there. I was too busy with work, too busy with Brexit and too busy with the Northern Ireland political talks, but I did not leave it there and that saved my life. I was lucky because my cancer was caught early.

" I was able to receive curative treatment—surgery to remove the upper part of my right lung—but, sadly, too often that does not happen. Too often people find out that they have cancer too late, and that is what we need to change."

"Every year around 36,000 people will die from lung cancer. That is more than breast, prostate and pancreatic cancer combined. It is the UK’s biggest cancer killer and survival rates remain stubbornly poor."

One of the main reasons for this is that it is detected at a point when curative treatment is no longer an option. Two thirds of lung cancers are diagnosed when the disease is at an advanced stage.

Let me give hon. Members a sense of what this means. Some 83% of lung cancer patients diagnosed at stage 1, when the cancer has not spread, survive their cancer for at least a year. This drops to just 17% at stage 4, when the cancer has spread to another organ.

But this is not a numbers game. It is real life—and death.

The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, gave me just one example of this stark reality. Steph lost her dad to lung cancer in December last year. He died 12 weeks after diagnosis. She said:

“I think the worst thing was my dad wasn’t given the opportunity to really fight it.”

We are talking about mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, loved ones and colleagues. Lives are cut short because we do not pick up on the signs and symptoms. We just do not get it picked up quickly enough.

Symptoms could include a persistent cough that just will not go away; feeling breathless but just not knowing why; hoarseness in the voice; unexplained tiredness or lack of energy; weight loss that cannot be understood; coughing up blood.

Yet, according to opinion research commissioned by the British Lung Foundation and BritainThinks, one in five people in the UK are unable to name any symptoms of lung disease at all.

Smoking is a clear risk factor, but many people who have never smoked develop lung cancer. I was one of them. Around 15% of lung cancers are in non-smokers. Given that 46,000 people are diagnosed each year, that is a big number in its own right.

I have been struck by the number of people who have asked me, “Did you smoke?” And that is how I have come to appreciate that stigma and misperceptions can be a barrier to getting people the help they need. Rightly, we have made huge steps forward in smoking cessation programmes.

We have firmly cemented in people’s minds that lung cancer and other lung diseases are caused by smoking. But there are unintended consequences.

Lung cancer can be caused by a number of factors, not just smoking, yet British Lung Foundation opinion research suggests that as many as a quarter of us assume that everyone with a lung condition is a smoker.

This was brought home to me when I was contacted by someone with cystic fibrosis—a genetic condition—who told me that even he had been asked if he had smoked. There is even the suggestion that lung conditions are considered less sympathetically.

If someone links lung cancer so strongly to smoking and they have never smoked, they might simply ignore symptoms. Equally, if someone has obvious symptoms but is struggling with feelings of guilt or blame because they do smoke, they might not seek help.

We need to challenge perceptions and ensure that stigma does not get in the way. We need to see that people with lung cancer receive the support and treatment they need, whether or not they have smoked.

Today:

If you aren't feeling well

Whatever your symptoms be they physical or mental

Raise your concerns

Time matters

For so many illnesses

roycastle.org

The link to the full Hansard reference

(I shortened a few tweets of it just to fit them within the character limit)

hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-0…