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 improve pancreatic cancer survival rates.

National Health Service services for pancreatic cancer have been significantly improved in recent years. This includes clearer diagnostic pathways; decision making by specialist multi-disciplinary teams; and the centralisation of pancreas surgery within specialist teams.

The Five Year Forward View ‘Next Steps’ Plan is available at:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/five-year-forward-view/

This now aims to further improve cancer survival by an extra 5,000 people and improve experience of care over the next two years, with a range of improvements including:

- Patients having better access to the latest treatments, with roll-out of the largest radiotherapy upgrade programme in 15 years, with an extra £94 million to be spent on equipping hospitals with state of the art linear accelerators;

- Patients being tested sooner with investment in greater diagnostic capacity, including 10 new Rapid Diagnostic and Assessment Centres. This will be measured through the new 28 day faster diagnosis standard which will be rolled out from April 2018; and

- Personalised care and support being offered to patients during treatment and for those recovering from cancer, improving their quality of life and experience of care.