Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Freeman and Simon Danczuk

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I pay tribute to his work on this through the independent cancer taskforce. The aim is to save 30,000 more lives a year by 2020. We are working with Harpal Kumar and Cancer Research UK on implementing its recommendations. NICE has set out new guidelines on clear ambitions and standards on how quickly patients should be referred for diagnostics. There is good news in that in 2014-15, compared with 2009-10, over 4.3 million more imaging and endoscopy tests were commonly used to diagnose cancers, but I agree that we have much more still to do.

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)]

4. What steps he is taking to reduce suicide rates.