WEDNESDAY 21 JUNE 2000

MR MICHAEL WOOD MBE

  587. I now call Mr Michael Wood, Director General, Ulster Cancer Foundation.
  (Mr Wood) Thank you, Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, the Ulster Cancer Foundation has been involved in raising funds for cancer research, patient care and prevention since it was first established in 1971 and although only a regional charity raising and spending its funds exclusively in Northern Ireland has contributed over £12 million to cancer control locally. It jointly funded the establishment of the Department of Oncology at Queen's University in 1974 and since then has paid for more than 300 research investigations in our two local universities. However, in the past five years our research funding policy has changed in that we have decided to concentrate our financial support in certain key areas rather than encourage open competition for project grants. Whilst the Foundation has provided valuable pump priming to a large number of cancer research investigations in the past, with the limited funding available to us, it was felt that with the establishment of the new Ulster Cancer Foundation Chair in Oncology at Queen's University Belfast priority to pump-priming the professor's department to help develop a centre of excellence in the new department was a key priority, whilst at the same time maintaining our important commitment to the University of Ulster's research programme. This we did by expending substantial funds on refurbishing and equipping new laboratories at Queen's University and funding new research staff. We believe that the results achieved, which I understand the Committee had the opportunity to see yesterday, justified our decision. Currently the Foundation provides a five-year programme of grant to the Department of Oncology, which includes funding for a research team in new UCF laboratories in the cancer centre. The team includes the UCF professor, a senior consultant oncologist, senior and junior scientific staff, post-doctoral fellowships and students. We also continue to fund senior scientific staff and research at the University of Ulster. Indeed the Foundation has played a key role in facilitating joint projects and collaboration between the two universities. In addition, the Foundation helped establish the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry, with a substantial investment in jointly funding key posts, including the medical director, in collaboration with the Department of Health from 1994 to the current year. We believe that an excellent cancer research infrastructure now exists in Northern Ireland and with the recent agreement with the US National Cancer Institute and the Republic of Ireland for tripartite cooperation in cancer research and treatment, a unique opportunity exists to build a centre of excellence for the benefit of all cancer patients. However, this will only be achieved if the Government ensures that it makes available the necessary resources and matches the voluntary sector in its commitment to develop a quality cancer service for all the people in Northern Ireland. Our views are set out in the document Cancer Service—Invest Now, which has been just been launched to Members of both Houses in the Jubilee Room. This document is available to the Committee.

  Chairman: Thank you very much indeed, Mr Wood. I should like to invite Dr Gibson to put a question to you since he was one of the Committee Members who visited Ulster yesterday.

  588. What would your view be on the National Cancer Institute if we had one in this country? Do you think that would be an advantage?
  (Mr Wood) I certainly do. I think a focal point to bring together all those things which require excellence has to be a priority if we are going to come to terms with the fairly disparate nature of cancer treatment and research in this country at the moment.

  589. We had an answer to the question from the professionals yesterday but we should ask the voluntary organisations as well. If you had extra money in terms of millions of pounds, what would be your priorities in Northern Ireland?
  (Mr Wood) The first priority would be to provide a cancer service which met the needs of patients and we have been talking about that in this document. I will just simply say that at the moment we have 10.5 consultant oncologists in the province and would require 30 if we were to equal the number of consultants who would cope with the same patient load in Europe and North America. My first priority would be to ensure we had adequate consultant and oncology staff, adequate money for the new drug regimes which are there, after that I would think a bit.

  590. Given the small size of the Ulster population do you think there would be an advantage in establishing an all-Ireland cancer centre of excellence if you could get around the minor political difficulties.
  (Mr Wood) Did you say "minor"? There are tremendous benefits in cooperation and things are moving that way already. What we do have to recognise is that the development of the Health Service as well as cancer services is very different between the two countries. The system is different and, being parochial, we are quite far ahead in terms of the current situation in Northern Ireland, even though we do not have the funds. Yes, we should be working towards that and of course that is one of the things which the NCI agreement was all about because there are undoubted benefits in cooperation in all sorts of studies; genetically the country is one where epidemiological studies can be done. There are so many benefits which would accrue. We are at a stage where we are very close to having a centre of excellence in the North, but they would have quite a bit of "catch up" to play in the South to get to that level.

  Chairman: On that contentious point, we shall finish. Thank you very much.