Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with international counterparts on their approach to the less survivable cancers.

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/