How Chancellor always had hope ‘lovely’ Charlie, 53, would survive sarcoma battle

Jeremy Hunt today referenced his late brother Charlie as he unveiled a bumper £6billion NHS funding package. 

Charlie Hunt died in August aged just 53, three years after he was diagnosed with spindle cell sarcoma — an ultra-rare cancer affecting fewer than one in a million people.

Despite his terminal diagnosis, the Chancellor has previously said he always had ‘hope’ his brother would somehow pull through.

Addressing the Commons as he announced the budget, Mr Hunt vowed to give the health service £3.5billion to overhaul outdated IT systems. 

He claimed it would stop NHS staff wasting time filling out forms and instead boost the number of appointments available, helping to tackle the NHS backlog. 

This would also help medics interpret scans for disease like cancer faster, speeding up diagnosis, he added. 

Mr Hunt said his brother would have been ‘delighted’ by the measures. 

Charlie, a successful businessman and father-of-three, was diagnosed with sarcoma in 2020. 

He raised more than £140,000 through his own endeavours for Sarcoma UK and The Royal Surrey Cancer & Surgical Innovation Centre, including running the London Marathon with his brother in October 2022, while undergoing treatment.

On his JustGiving page before his death, he told how he had undergone years of gruelling treatment.  

Charlie described undergoing surgery on his right leg, adding: ‘Since then the battle has continued with surgery on both of my lungs.

‘I have been in and out of hospital pretty constantly but have received excellent treatment from the NHS and am still fighting on nearly three years later.’

After his death, Sarcoma UK paid tribute to Charlie, calling him a ‘lovely man and a tireless fundraiser’.

Around 5,300 people diagnosed with sarcoma, an aggressive cancer of the soft tissue or bone, each year in the UK.

But survival rates are poor with more than 100 different sub-types, making effective diagnosis and treatment even more difficult.

Estimates also suggest that over 1,000 people will be diagnosed with an ‘ultra-rare sarcoma’ such as synovial sarcoma. 

In October, Jeremy spoke of his heartbreak at losing his brother, revealing ‘I never thought he would die’.

Speaking at a fundraising event for Sarcoma UK, he paid tribute to families who used personal tragedies to strive for breakthroughs, vowing to do the same for Charlie.

‘When I was Health Secretary, I used to meet a lot of campaigners who had lost loved ones and were upset and sad at tragic loss of someone before their time, he said. 

‘It always impressed me when people said “rather than get angry, I’m actually going to do something. I’m going to try and do something to get an NHS to change so that this doesn’t happen again”.’

He added: ‘It is a very difficult thing to relive the sadness of losing someone over and over again in order to try and prevent the same thing happening to other families. And it’s a wonderful thing.’

In an interview with The Mail in July, the Chancellor also told how cancer has hit his family, claiming the lives of both his parents.

He revealed how he himself once had a mole in his head that ‘just grew and grew’ and had to be removed.

‘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,’ he said.

‘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.’

The health service will also get an additional £2.45billion of extra funding in the Budget to help ‘the NHS meet pressures for the coming year’ and tackle waiting lists, taking the total announced investment to almost £6billion.