Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of using breast density assessment software at women's first breast cancer screening appointments; and if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of that technology on women's awareness of their personal risk of developing breast cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Breast Screening Risk Adaptive Imaging for Density trial is looking into the use of supplementary imaging techniques for women, within the standard breast screening programme, who are found to have radiographically dense breast tissue. The UK National Screening Committee, which advises ministers and the National Health Service in all four countries in the United Kingdom, will review this evidence when it becomes available.
Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
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 potential impact of the decision by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to not recommend trastuzumab deruxtecan for HER2-low secondary breast cancer for use on NHS on the life expectancy of eligible women.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has not yet published final guidance on the use of trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu) for the treatment of metastatic HER2-low breast cancer. The NICE published final draft guidance on 5 March 2024, that does not recommend it as a clinically and cost-effective use of National Health Service resources. Stakeholders had until 19 March 2024 to lodge an appeal against the NICE’s recommendations. The NICE currently expects to publish final guidance on 3 April 2024.
Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the backlog of breast cancer surgeries, treatments and screenings resulting from the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The National Health Service is restoring the full operation of all cancer services, with local delivery plans being delivered by Cancer Alliances.
Systems will work with general practitioners and the public locally to restore the number of people coming forward and being referred with suspected cancer to at least pre-pandemic levels.
Sufficient diagnostic capacity in COVID-19 secure environments will be supplied through the use of independent sector facilities, the development of Community Diagnostic Hubs and Rapid Diagnostic Centres, further all cancer screening programmes will be fully restarted.
Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of school children who have had HPV vaccinations delayed as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill
School-aged vaccinations, including human papillomavirus (HPV), were impacted by the closure of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. School-aged immunisation providers across the country are now working with NHS England and NHS Improvement commissioners with clinical advice from Public Health England to catch up those vaccinations that were previously paused.
Whilst we do not have an estimate of the number of school children whose HPV vaccination has been delayed due the COVID-19 outbreak, the priority now is to ensure that all those eligible are offered at least one dose of HPV vaccine, as per the advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the article published in The Lancet on 12 August 2020 entitled Effect of mammographic screening from age 40 years on breast cancer mortality, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of lowering the breast cancer screening age for women.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The United Kingdom National Screening Committee (UK NSC) is aware of the The Lancet publication of the long-term outcomes of the UK Breast Screening Age trial.
The UK NSC will examine the findings carefully along with other initiatives in this area, which includes the use of artificial intelligence and digital pathology in the National Health Service Breast Screening Programme (NHS BSP). Currently there is a robust estimate that the current NHS BSP strategy is effective in preventing deaths from breast cancer. This involves regular screening in women aged 50 up to their 71st birthday.
The UK NSC also awaits the publication of the Age Extension Trial of screening in women over the age of 70 which is due to report in 2026.
The Committee’s overriding concern is that any significant change to the Programme should result in more good than harm and be cost proportionable.
Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women aged under 25 were invited for cervical screening in (a) 2017, (b) 2018 and (c) 2019.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The NHS Cervical Screening Programme provides all women between the ages of 25 and 64 the opportunity to be screened routinely to detect cervical abnormalities at an early stage, although women may receive their first invite up to six months before their 25th birthday.
However, women outside of this age group may still be assessed by the programme. Under 25-year olds will be included in the screening record if cervical abnormalities are coincidentally found as part of separate gynaecological assessments.
The number of women invited by the programme is published on an annual basis, and includes breakdowns by age group. The report can be accessed at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/cervical-screening-annual.
The data for under 25-year olds for the years requested is shown in the following table:
Number of women invited, by age-group, in 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 (financial years):
Age group (years) | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 |
Under 20 | 53 | 39 | 25 |
20-24 | 189,978 | 189,955 | 189,176 |
Total under 25 | 190,031 | 189,994 | 189,201 |
Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women aged under 25 have been invited for cervical screening in the last six months.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The NHS Cervical Screening Programme provides all women between the ages of 25 and 64 the opportunity to be screened routinely to detect cervical abnormalities at an early stage, although women may receive their first invite up to six months before their 25th birthday.
Data on women screened under the age of 25 in the last six months is not currently available. The most recent available data for number of invites by age is for the 2018-19 financial year (1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019). Data for the 2019-20 financial year will be published in the 2019-20 annual report, scheduled for publication in November 2020.
The latest available information can be found at the following link:
Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of 13 to 24 year olds with cancer who were considered clinically extremely vulnerable and advised to shield in England.
Answered by Jo Churchill
NHS Digital has produced a count of living patients that are classified as being on the Shielded Patient List in England, aged 13-24 years old inclusive as at 27 August 2020, who fell within one or more cancer disease groups at that point in time. The total number falling within one of these categories as at 27 August 2020 was 4,858 patients.
Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that people with incurable secondary breast cancer may receive timely treatment in covid-19 free hubs and sites.
Answered by Jo Churchill
NHS England and NHS Improvement have put in place arrangements to ensure that essential and urgent treatment for cancers has continued throughout the response to the pandemic, including issuing clear guidance to the system and supporting the development of cancer ‘hubs’ for surgery. This is dependent on the advice of clinicians, who will consider the possible risks and with patient safety at core of the decision making process.
The National Health Service is now working to restore and recover all cancer services, including for people with secondary breast cancer, in ways that keep patients as safe as possible.
Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to publish data from the field testing for the new faster diagnosis standard for cancer due to be implemented in April 2020.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Faster Diagnosis Standard for cancer is being tested as part of the Clinical Review of Standards. The findings from this testing are due to be published by NHS England and NHS Improvement in the spring.