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 improve the speed of cancer diagnosis during the covid-19 outbreak.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are increasing diagnostic capacity and early diagnosis and survival rates through rapid diagnostic centres (RDC). As of June 2021, there were 83 live RDC pathways across hospitals in England, compared to 12 in March 2020.

The ‘Help us, help you’ cancer symptoms awareness campaign will continue through the summer to encourage those who are experiencing worrying symptoms to contact their general practitioner as soon as possible. NHS England and NHS Improvement have advised that all National Health Service cancer screening programmes are operational and sending out screening invitations at, or above, pre-pandemic levels.