Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's press release dated 8 September 2021, Innovation and new technology to help reduce NHS waiting lists, whether the 9 million additional scans introduced by the Government include scanning for cancer.

Since the publication of the press release, we have published the ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’. This sets out how the National Health Service will recover and expand elective services in the next three years. The plan aims to deliver nine million additional treatments and diagnostic procedures and approximately 30% more elective activity by 2024/25, including for cancer patients.