Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
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 improve diagnosis times for young people with cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is committed to getting the National Health Service diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster so that more patients survive this horrible set of diseases, including children and young people. To achieve this, the NHS has delivered an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week as the first step to ensuring early diagnosis and faster treatment.
On 4 February 2025, the Department relaunched the Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce to identify tangible ways to improve outcomes and experiences for children and young people with cancer.
The forthcoming National Cancer Plan will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, including for children and young people with cancer, and will highlight how we aim to improve diagnosis rates for people across England.