Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to address the findings of the Anthony Nolan Trust on the comparatively low survival rates for people with blood cancer from BAME backgrounds.

The Government funds Anthony Nolan and NHS Blood and Transplant to improve equity of access to unrelated donor stem cell transplantation for Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) patients through targeted recruitment to the United Kingdom Stem Cell Registry.

The National Cancer Programme is committed to transforming cancer care and outcomes for all people living with cancer, including those with rarer and hard to diagnose cancers. Ambitions have been set for all cancers and we are clear that we will not meet those ambitions without improving what we do for haematological cancers.

Although cancer patients in England rated their overall care 9 out of 10 in the 2016 Cancer Patient Experience Survey, the survey also tells us that BAME patients report poorer experiences of cancer care. NHS England is therefore working with clinical commissioning groups to ensure they use the very best evidence when planning, commissioning and monitoring services for these communities.