Labour’s cancer leaflet campaign questioned

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDApr 12 2010

Last month more than 250,000 personalized leaflets were sent out to women with a warning that a Conservative government would scrap a Labour guarantee that all suspected breast cancer patients would be seen by a specialist within two weeks of GP referral. They also claimed that the Conservative party will take away the right to be treated for cancer within 18 weeks. According to a Sunday Times report some of the recipients of this leaflet were cancer patients or cancer survivors.

Now Tory leader David Cameron requested the Prime Minister apologize for sending such leaflets saying that such policies are “sick.” He went on to say that many recipients are "very angry and very upset". He said, "I think this is just an absolutely appalling way to behave. If Gordon Brown has a moral compass he should get it out and have a good look at it and apologize to these people straight away." The Tory shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley also said, "It is shameful that the Labour party, knowing that we are the only party that is going to increase investment in the NHS, have decided to deliberately scare patients and misrepresent what we have said.”

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable also said that this is very “disreputable” indeed if the databases of cancer patients are used for such circulars. He went on to say, "There needs to be proper investigation to find out if there has been abuse. I feel strongly about this because my late wife died of cancer. We lived with this for 14-15 years, and if we'd received cards on an individual basis trying to make party politics out of it we'd have been very angry indeed."

Labour has strongly denied such allegations claiming that only cancer patients were targeted. Health Secretary Andy Burnham retaliated by saying, "It is wholly wrong to suggest that the Labour Party has, or would ever, target cancer sufferers with its leaflets and I totally reject that claim. The real issue here is the choice that the country faces on the NHS… Whilst Labour will guarantee rapid access to cancer specialists and cancer tests, the Conservatives have repeatedly said they would scrap those guarantees, despite all the evidence which shows that they save thousands of lives and will save thousands more lives in the future."

Personalized campaign literature is increasingly used by both parties. So far Labour has already sent out 600,000 cards and more are planned aiming at groups like aged pensioners, small business owners etc. According to the data management company Experian, both Labour and the Conservatives used its Mosaic database which can categorize voters into 67 different groups. The hospital statistics, patient details, diagnosis, addresses etc. are publicly available according to the parties.

Last night health minister Mike O'Brien in defense announced, "People can be assured that Labour had not got its hands on personal information – we would not have been allowed to have that… What we wanted to do was make sure that people, whether they were cancer patients or not, knew what the truth was. The Conservatives will get rid of what they call our target, and it is, that cancer patients will have the right of access to a cancer specialist within two weeks of being seen by a GP.” “How would I apologise, in any sense, for what is telling people the truth?” he signed off.