Genomics: Screening

(asked on 1st February 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to ensure future NHS genomic testing publications include data on access to different cancer tests based on an individual's (a) ethnicity, (b) socioeconomic status and (c) type of cancer test.


Answered by
Andrew Stephenson Portrait
Andrew Stephenson
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 8th February 2024

National Health Service genomic testing activity data, collected from all seven NHS Genomic Laboratory Hubs, is available on the NHS England website. NHS England will continue to publish this data on a quarterly basis. The published data indicates the total volume of genomic testing activity completed per month, broken down into cancer and rare and inherited disease. The cancer data is further separated into nine different categories of cancer. NHS England is looking into separating this further if there are other specific categories of cancer test type which would be of interest. The published data does not currently include data broken down by ethnicity or socioeconomic status, but NHS England’s ambition is to improve and expand future publications of the data, which may include areas relating to health inequalities.

Reticulating Splines