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 ensure that the backlog for cancer treatment is prioritised in the context of the covid-19 outbreak.
The Government confirmed an additional £3 billion for the National Health Service in the Spending Review 2020, on top of the long-term settlement, to support the recovery from the impact of COVID-19. Cancer patients will continue to be prioritised and will benefit from approximately £1 billion to begin tackling the elective backlog.
The NHS is moving rapidly to increase diagnostic capacity, with a particular focus on immediate action plans to increase endoscopy and computerised tomography capacity, and focusing on reducing the number of those waiting more than 62 days on cancer pathways, particularly for those who have had their care delayed by the pandemic. In October, NHS England and NHS Improvement and Public Health England launched the latest ‘Help us help you’ campaign to urge people with potential symptoms of cancer to see their general practitioner.