Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help reduce care disparities for different cancer types.

Making improvements across different cancer types is critical to helping achieve the NHS Long-Term Plan ambition of diagnosing 75% of patients at an early stage by 2028 and reducing inequalities in cancer survival. Early cancer diagnosis is also a specific priority within the National Health Service’s wider Core20Plus5 approach to reducing healthcare inequalities.

Reducing variation in cancer treatment is a strategic priority for the NHS Cancer Programme. The NHS Cancer Programme has commissioned five new cancer clinical audits, which will provide timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, increase the consistency of access to treatments and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. The Royal College of Surgeons began work on this audit in October last year with the first outcomes expected in 2023/24. The audits will cover ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, kidney cancer and primary and metastatic breast cancer.