MP with cancer positive but 'walks the dog crying'

An MP with incurable breast cancer has said she has spent a lot of time "walking on the beach with the dog crying a lot".

Ashley Dalton resigned as health minister on 2 March due to her health but said she would continue as West Lancashire MP and was "generally positive".

Speaking to the BBC, the 53-year-old said she was "immensely proud" of what she had achieved in the year she had been health minister.

The MP revealed in January 2025 that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer for a second time.

"I became a minister not to be something," she said, "but to do something, and I've done an awful lot in 12 months."

The Labour MP said her oral chemotherapy gave her "extreme fatigue" and that being a minister and a constituency MP was like having "two full-time jobs".

She told BBC North West Tonight: "It soon became clear that something had to give and it wasn't going to be West Lancs and it can't be the chemo."

The politician, who was elected to Parliament in 2023, said: "I'm not going to live any longer just because I'm being positive.

"Your attitude won't change the number of days you get but it will change the type of days you get."

Ashley was appointed minister for public health and prevention in February 2025.

She has led on the government's National Cancer Plan (NCP), which has proposals to transform cancer care by 2035.

They aim to ensure three in four patients are cancer-free or living well five years after diagnosis.

"The fact that the prime minister asked me, a woman with incurable cancer, to lead the National Cancer Plan is incredible.

"He said he wanted to put patients at the heart of it and he put a patient at the head of it. I'm really proud of that."

The NCP has also pledged to deliver faster diagnoses using AI and robotic technologies.

Ashley was first diagnosed with breast cancer 12 years ago but said it took almost two years to actually receive a diagnosis.

Six months after that, her daughter's father was told he had incurable kidney cancer. He had also received a late diagnosis.

The MP said: "It was his idea I should go into Parliament.

"When I stood originally, it was about improving cancer outcomes because after the experience we had it showed it's not as good as it could be."

The government's 10-year plan was "ambitious", she said, but, while treatments are good in "some places", Dalton admitted it was not "good enough".

The politician said she now had been able to go to the odd yoga class or coffee mornings with other women with secondary breast cancer.

The politician insisted she was not "walking away" from being an MP.

She said: "I've done things I wanted to do and I hope they make a difference.

"I'll continue to champion all those things from the back benches."

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