Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to increase cancer survival rates in the next five years.

Cancer is a priority for this Government and survival rates are at a record high¹. Since 2010 rates of survival from cancer have increased year-on-year. Around 7,000 people are alive today who would not have been had mortality rates stayed the same as in 2010. But we know there is more to do, and NHS England is leading the health and care system in implementing the recommendations of the independent Cancer Taskforce report, ‘Achieving World-Class Cancer Outcomes: A strategy for England 2015-2020’, to save a further 30,000 lives a year by 2020.

Note:

¹Between 2005 and 2013 one-year survival for all cancers combined increased from 63.6% to 70.2%. Between 2005 and 2009 five-year survival for all cancer combined increased from 46.2% to 49.6%.

Source: Office for National Statistics