Rochdale MP Tony Lloyd has said he has cancer and will soon be undergoing further treatment.
Mr Lloyd, who is also a forner Police and Crime Commissioner for Greater Manchester, is to have further treatment for blood cancer, he said in a statement issued today (Monday).
In a statement, Mr Lloyd, formerly an MP for Stretford, said: “After a recent diagnosis, my doctors have prescribed a course of chemotherapy for me. This is mainly delivered as a day patient to hospital and not very intense. This began a little before Christmas and will continue over the next couple of months. However, both the condition I have and the underlying treatment mean that my immune system is compromised during this time and a little beyond. In other words I am exposed to a higher risk of catching any infection.
“As a result, doctors are telling me to socially isolate and avoid meetings. I shall not be attending Parliament during this treatment period nor meeting people in my Rochdale constituency or elsewhere, but I shall hold advice surgeries as usual though by way of zoom or telephone, and constituents who want to use this facility are welcome to do so. I shall continue to work to hold Ministers to account through the written questions I table, the letters I write as well as engaging with other agencies on behalf of my constituents.
“It’s obviously my ambition to get back to normal both for me as an individual and as a Member of Parliament as soon as possible but in the meantime, I shall concentrate on getting better.”
In 2020 the veteran Labour politician spent two weeks in hospital - including five days in an induced coma - before he was well enough to return to the care of his family after becoming ill with Covid-19.
In the spring of that year he was rushed to A&E at Manchester Royal Infirmary, where he would later be put on a ventilator. At the time the father of four was not aware he was at significantly heightened risk from the illness due to a serious but as yet undiagnosed condition.
A ‘very routine blood test’ he had taken while in London had detected a low red blood cell count. He would eventually be diagnosed with a rare type of blood cancer - a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma known as Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinaemia - but not until his battle with Covid was won.
In 2021 he went into remission from blood cancer following a successful course of chemotherapy. But in the statement issued today he says will begin a further course of the treatment and is therefore avoiding some meetings but still intends to hold surgeries for his Rochdale constitients.
In 2021 Mr Lloyd described how the kindness of strangers - as well as the support of his loved ones and skill of the medical professions - has been invaluable in his fight for life.
He said at the time: “I’m genuinely so grateful to so many people who have been there for me. It’s the obvious people - those in my family, my loved-ones, those who thought of me, those who quite literally prayed for me during the worst times I was ill.
“But actually it was all manner of people. I had a number of blood transfusions [as part of his cancer treatment] and I will never know how those people were. But what amazing people - they almost certainly saved my life."
