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 reduce the time taken to diagnose sarcoma cancer.

The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ details how the National Health Service will reduce the time taken to diagnose cancer, including sarcoma cancer. The plan aims to return the number of people waiting more than 62 days from an urgent referral for cancer to pre-pandemic levels by March 2023. By March 2024, 75% of patients who have been urgently referred by their general practitioner (GP) for suspected cancer will be diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days.

The NHS is raising awareness of cancer symptoms through the ‘Help us help you’ campaign and locally tailored approaches to increase the number of referrals from GPs. We are investing £2.3 billion to establish up to 160 community diagnostic centres (CDCs) by March 2025. CDCs will provide additional capacity for tests which can assist the diagnosis of sarcoma cancer, such as ultrasounds, magnetic resonance imaging and biopsies. Since July 2021, existing CDCs have provided over 650,000 additional tests.

Those diagnosed with sarcoma and with a family history or risk factors can access genomic tests to aid early diagnosis and treatment options. There are also specialist soft tissue sarcoma cancer centres and specialist bone sarcoma centres in England. These centres accept referrals for patients with suspected diagnoses from genomics results or primary or acute care.