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 help improve outcomes for people with brain tumours; and if he will develop a brain tumour strategy to help improve (a) diagnosis, (b) treatments and (c) support from clinical nurse specialists for (i) patients and (ii) families.

The Department, NHS England, and the National Institute for Health Care and Research (NIHR) are taking several steps to help improve outcomes for brain tumour patients.

NHS England has worked with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission to designate centres of excellence in the management of brain tumours, with nine centres having achieved this designation. The mission has a workstream on training to expand the brain tumour treatment workforce, with collaboration between National Health Service bodies, royal colleges, and charities.

NHS England is committed to ensuring that all cancer patients are offered Holistic Needs Assessment and Personalised Care and Support Planning, ensuring care is focused on what matters most to each person. As well as this, all patients, including those with secondary cancers, will have access to the right expertise and support, including a Clinical Nurse Specialist or other support worker.

Further to this, in September 2024, the NIHR announced new research funding opportunities for brain cancer research, spanning both adult and paediatric populations. This includes a national NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium, to ensure the most promising research opportunities are made available to adult and child patients, and a new funding call to generate high quality evidence in brain tumour care, support, and rehabilitation.

As part of our 10-Year Health Plan to radically reform our broken NHS, we will fight cancer on all fronts, from prevention, to diagnosis, treatment, and research.

We will get the NHS diagnosing cancer, including brain tumours, on time, diagnosing it earlier, and treating it faster, so more patients survive this horrible set of diseases, and we will improve patients’ experience across the system. To do this, we will address the challenges in diagnostic waiting times, providing the number of computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and other tests that are needed to reduce cancer waits.