Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effect on patient survival rates of delayed diagnosis and screening for colorectal cancer as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

The UK National Screening Committee is undertaking work to estimate the impact of delays to screening programmes, including cancer screening, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This work is currently in its early stages and the results will be reported as soon they are available.

NHS England and NHS Improvement is working to clear the backlog of bowel cancer screening as quickly as possible. All 64 bowel screening centres are now undertaking diagnostic colonoscopies and sending routine screening invitations. As at 5 October 2020, the number of people who have had a faecal immunochemical test-positive result and are awaiting a diagnostic test has nearly halved in comparison to those waiting in April 2020.