Incurably-ill Lancashire MP takes on vital new role to improve cancer care
"Better cancer care means listening to those who know what it means to live with it.”
West Lancashire MP Ashley Dalton has taken a key new role in shaping the future of cancer care.
Ms Dalton - who was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2024 - has become the Government’s new Advisor for the National Cancer Plan. This will include highlighting where delivery is off-track and further intervention may be needed, and assessing whether the Plan is delivering improvements in quality of life and patient experience for people affected by cancer.
Ms Dalton wrote the National Cancer Plan before stepping down from her role as Health Minister to focus on her constituency West Lancashire and her cancer treatment.
Her new appointment comes as the Government announces more than 1,000 people have joined a government-funded trial testing shorter radiotherapy treatment, potentially saving patients 10 hospital trips.
Speaking on the appointment, Ms Dalton said: “It’s a real honour to be appointed the Government’s Cancer Advisor. Publishing the National Cancer Plan was a huge professional and personal achievement of mine and I have been determined to ensure that the commitments in it are driven forward.
“Now I can do this in a more formal way, working directly with the responsible Minister, James Frith.
“My time as Health Minister taught me so much, and so has living with metastatic breast cancer. I want to use my experiences in the best way I can, to support the commitment in the National Cancer Plan that by 2035, three out of four people diagnosed with cancer will be cancer free or living well with cancer after five years.”
Yvette Cooper MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social, Care said: "Better cancer care means listening to those who know what it means to live with it. That’s why Ashley Dalton’s appointment as adviser on the National Cancer Plan is so important.
"Her personal experience of cancer, alongside her previous experience at the Department of Health and Social Care, will help ensure the Plan reflects the realities of people living with cancer."