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 survival rates for children with (a) medulloblastoma and (b) relapsed medulloblastoma.

The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence’s guidance ‘Suspected cancer: recognition and referral’ provides advice for general practitioners (GPs) on the symptoms of cancer in children, recommending urgent referral within 48 hours for children presenting with a range of potential cancer symptoms including any unexplained lump, bruising or bleeding, neurological symptoms or bone pain. GPs can also refer a patient to non-symptom specific pathways when symptoms are vague. As of February 2022, there were 86 live non-symptom specific pathways in hospitals in England.