Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish a cancer strategy which includes measures on tackling (a) pancreatic and (b) other less survivable cancers.

The Health Mission sets the objective of building a National Health Service fit for the future. As part of that work, and in response to Lord Darzi’s report, we have launched an extensive programme of engagement to develop a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the NHS. The plan will set out a bold agenda to deliver on the three big shifts, from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.

In addition, following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will develop a new national cancer plan, which will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, including those with pancreatic and other less survivable cancers.

We are now in discussions about what form that plan should take, and what its relationship to the 10-Year Health Plan and the Government’s wider Health Mission should be, and will provide updates on this in due course.

NHS England is delivering a range of interventions that are expected to improve early diagnosis and treatment for patients with suspected and diagnosed pancreatic cancer. This includes providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for patients at inherited high-risk, to identify lesions before they develop into cancer, and diagnose cancers sooner.

In March 2024, NHS England published guidance for providers and systems to implement a timed Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary cancer pathway with the aim of ensuring that patients with some suspected tumour types, including suspected pancreatic cancer, receive a diagnosis or have cancer ruled out within 28 days of urgent referral.