Asked by: Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what his planned timetable is to commence payment of compensation for firefighter pension arrears in accordance with the firefighter pension scheme immediate detriment framework of March 2023.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The relevant legislation provides that all eligible members of the firefighters’ pension scheme will be given a choice to remedy the discrimination set out in the McCloud/Sargeant judgment and that information should be provided to eligible members by 1 April 2025.
Adjustments to individual members’ benefits are an administrative matter and the Firefighters’ pension scheme is locally administered by each of the separate Fire and Rescue Authorities in England. The Home Office does not have a role in the administrative processes and does not hold information on administrative processes in Fire and Rescue Authorities.
Asked by: Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the impact of proposed changes to Personal Independence Payment on people living with (a) cancer and (b) the long-term side effects of cancer treatment.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
Modernising Support for Independent Living: The Health and Disability Green Paper looks at different options to reshape the current welfare system so that we can provide better targeted support to those who need it most. We are considering these options through our 12-week consultation which was published on Monday 29 April and will close on Monday 22 July at 11:59pm. Any possible impacts on people living with cancer and people living with the long-term side effects of cancer treatment will be considered as necessary.
There will be no immediate changes to PIP, or to health assessments. All scheduled PIP assessments and payments will proceed as normal, and claimants should continue to engage as usual and provide any necessary information or updates regarding their circumstances.
We encourage everyone to respond to the consultation which can be found here, so that we are able to hear from as many disabled people, people with health conditions, their representatives, and local stakeholders as possible on these important issues.
Asked by: Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has plans to deliver a national awareness campaign on breast cancer screening.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Department is currently exploring opportunities for national campaigns to support positive outcomes on women’s health. Work is underway to scope the feasibility of running a national campaign to support breast screening uptake, and this will be informed by pilot activity due to run in London in 2024/25.
Asked by: Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress has been made on the Government's major conditions strategy with specific reference to breast cancer; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
In the development of the Major Conditions Strategy, we are considering how we improve outcomes for people in this country living with multiple conditions. Aligning work across several groups of conditions including cancer for this strategy, will allow us to focus on where there are similarities in approach and ensure care is better centred around the patient, maximising existing resources both within patient pathways and in integrating between pathways.
Improving early diagnosis of cancer, including breast cancer, is a priority for the Government. The National Health Service has an ambition to diagnose 75% of cancers at stage 1 or 2 by 2028, which will help tens of thousands of people live for longer. We know that breast cancer remains the most common cancer in England, with over 49,000 people being diagnosed each year. Thanks to advances in screening, treatment, and care, alongside NHS awareness campaigns, more women are surviving the disease than ever before.
The NHS Cancer Programme has also commissioned five new cancer clinical audits, including primary and metastatic breast cancers. These will provide timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, will increase the consistency of access to treatments, and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients.
Asked by: Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the reasons for which the NHS missed its target of 70% of invited women to be screened for breast cancer in 2022-23.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Department is committed to improving uptake in the NHS Breast Screening Programme. NHS England has commissioned evaluative projects to look at ways to improve uptake, and to understand why women may not attend breast screening. These include: actively following up with women who have missed an appointment or not engaged with the service; looking at the reasons why women do not attend screenings, to address any barriers; and assessing the impact on screening uptake using different invitation methodologies with reference to factors such as age, previous screening history, including attendance at first invitation and subsequent invites, and deprivation. These projects are expected to report by April 2024.
Asked by: Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help increase the uptake of breast cancer screening in (a) England and (b) Norwich.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Government has invested £10 million of funding for the breast screening programme, which provided 28 new breast screening units and nearly 60 upgrades, to be targeted at areas with the greatest challenges of uptake and coverage. NHS England has developed a national plan in collaboration with key stakeholders, to improve uptake within the breast screening programme.
In the East of England, NHS England will work with the Breast Screening Service and the Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board to undertake a gap analysis and prioritise actions, and to look at options to increase its resilience by working with other local providers as a network.
Asked by: Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she has taken to encourage investment in research into (a) tests and (b) treatments for less survivable cancers.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
The Government is working hard to improve outcomes for all cancer patients through research, including those with less survivable cancers. In addition to hundreds of millions of cancer research funding annually, the Government demonstrated its commitment through the launch of the Healthcare Cancer Mission, bringing together Government, NHS, industry and charities to tackle cancer. The Mission aims to make the UK a leading testbed for oncology innovation by accelerating the development and commercialisation of a new generation of cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, allowing patients to be diagnosed earlier (key to better outcomes for UK patients) and offered therapies specifically targeting their cancer.
Asked by: Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether she has had recent discussions with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on levels of funding for research on potential tests and treatments for less survivable cancers.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
The Government remains fully committed to tackling all cancer types by investing in cutting-edge research. UK Research and Innovation invests around £200 million annually into cancer research, whilst the National Institute for Health and Care Research invested almost £122 million in 2022/23.
The Government’s Healthcare Cancer Mission is being jointly delivered by Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Backed by £22.5 million, it supports the development of new immune-based cancer therapies targeted to a patient’s specific cancer and technologies that enable earlier, more effective cancer diagnosis to improve survival rates.
Asked by: Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the rollout of community diagnostic centres on the time taken to diagnose less survivable cancers.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Government is taking steps through NHS England to improve outcomes for cancer patients, including those cancers mentioned by the Less Survivable Cancer Taskforce, namely lung, liver, brain, oesophageal, pancreatic and stomach. Diagnostic checks are a key part of cancer pathways and the 150 community diagnostic centres (CDCs) opened by the Government will give earlier diagnostic tests, benefitting millions of patients including those who are referred with suspected less survivable cancers. National Health Service systems have been asked to prioritise CDC capacity towards their most challenged cancer pathways, where this is clinically appropriate, and these centres have delivered over six million additional tests for all elective activity since July 2021. The CDC programme is on track to meet its target to open up to 160 CDCs by March 2025, with many due to open ahead of schedule.
In November 2022, the NHS also announced an expansion of direct access to diagnostic scans across all general practices, to help cut waiting times and speeding up cancer diagnosis, or all-clear for patients. The NHS is now looking to widen the clinical pathways for which this is offered.
Making improvements across different cancer types is critical to helping achieve the NHS Long Term Plan ambition of diagnosing 75% of patients at an early stage by 2028 and reducing inequalities in cancer survival. NHS England has commissioned new cancer clinical audits covering six cancer types, some of which are less survivable: pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, kidney cancer and primary and metastatic breast cancer. All six audits will cover care delivered in England and Wales.
Asked by: Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of an action plan for the less survivable cancers.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Cancer is being diagnosed at earlier stages, more often, with survival rates improving across almost all types of cancer with the National Health Service seeing and treating record numbers of cancer patients over the last two years.
The planned Major Conditions Strategy will look at the early diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The strategy will look at a wide range of interventions and enablers to improve outcomes and experience for a range of cancer patients, including those less survivable cancers. We have already acted upon some of the areas that the 2020 Less Survivable Cancer Taskforce report requested, for example the introduction of targeted lung health checks, trials for cytosponge, and the roll out of non-specific symptom pathways. The report is available at the following link:
https://lesssurvivablecancers.org.uk/our-asks/