24 July 2023 , 07:53
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Jeremy Hunt has said he was "blessed" that his skin cancer was caught and treated early as he called for more investment to stamp out the disease.
The Chancellor revealed that he lost both his parents to cancer. His father, Royal Navy admiral Sir Nicholas Hunt, died in 2013 aged 82, while Lady Meriel Hunt died last year, aged 84.
And in 2020, his brother Charlie, 53, was diagnosed with sarcoma, a rare cancer that begins in the bones or soft tissue.
Mr Hunt, 56, opened up over his own cancer diagnosis, saying he had "superb" treatment after discovering a mole on his head.
"I had a mole in my head that just grew and grew,’ he told the Daily Mail. "Eventually, I was told I needed to have it removed.
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"I was a Cabinet Minister at the time, not in my current job, but it was obviously the first time that the ‘C word’ had been used in terms of my own health so that makes you sit up.
Jeremy Hunt with his wife Lucia at a party at Buckingham Palace (Getty Images)"But I was blessed. It was not a life-threatening cancer and it was caught relatively early.
"I had superb treatment from the NHS to remove it, but I am very aware of members of my own family who have had much tougher battles against cancer, and I know that’s what families are going through up and down the country. My brother is doing OK, but like many families who have cancer, it is a life-changing thing."
Mr Hunt said it was critical to focus on catching cancer early as people are more likely to survive. However the NHS is battling to slash the treatment backlog following the Covid pandemic.
NHS England had committed to cutting the backlog of people waiting more than two months to be diagnosed and begin cancer treatment to pre-pandemic levels by March 2023 but this target was missed.
Mr Hunt said: "It's about half the cost for the NHS if you pick up cancer at stage one or two rather than three and four so that's why diagnostic centres are very important.
"Basically being able to get people early access to surgery is still the most effective way of getting rid of cancer."
Mr Hunt said the most dangerous cancers are those which do not show symptoms until it is too late.
"You're more likely to find a lump in your breast then you are the symptoms of prostate cancer and bowel cancer or oesophageal cancer," he said. "That's why they can often be so dangerous.
"Obviously I'm very aware from my time as Health Secretary that half of us will get cancer in our lifetimes, but the encouraging thing is this country really is one of the global leaders when it comes to cancer research.
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"We are doing some ground breaking research here which could lift the curse of cancer from humanity in the future, which is why I'm all in favour of anything we can possibly do to raise money to support more research into cancer and raise awareness of what's possible."
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