Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the recruitment freezes on cancer and diagnostic departments.

The Department has not made a formal assessment, but the development of the National Cancer Plan has highlighted areas where there are higher vacancy rates in some areas of the country. The Department and NHS England will work with the royal colleges to encourage resident doctors and internal medicine trainees to specialise in clinical and medical oncology, where possible, to address these pressures.

In addition, there were more doctors working in clinical oncology and more radiology doctors in October 2025 compared to October 2024. In 2025, NHS England provided grant funding, of £441,000, to the Royal College of Radiologists to encourage foundation and internal medicine trainees to specialise in clinical oncology. This work is currently ongoing to recruit priority medical specialties including clinical oncologists, medical oncologists, and clinical radiologists. NHS England increased medical training places significantly in 2021 and has sustained these, with fluctuations, since.

Through these interventions, patients will see improvements now, and these training places will secure the workforce for the future. Where there are shortages or local challenges, decisions about recruitment are matters for individual National Health Service trusts. Trusts must manage their recruitment at a local level to ensure they have the right number of staff in place, with the right skill mix, to deliver safe and effective care.

The Department has committed to the NHS meeting all cancer waiting time standards by the end of this Parliament, ending a decade of missed targets.

This can be achieved through our aim to deliver 9.5 million additional tests by 2029 though the Government’s £2.3 billion investment in diagnostics and ensuring as many community diagnostic centres as possible are fully operational and open 12 hours a day, seven days a week.