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 ensure that the NHS long-term health plan complements the National Cancer Strategy in the context of the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of (i) radiographers and (ii) radiologists.

The 10-Year Health Plan will deliver three big shifts in the focus of healthcare, from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention.

The Department will also refresh the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan to fit the transformed health service we will build over the next decade, so the National Health Service has the staff it needs to treat patients on time again. NHS England continues to lead on a range of initiatives to boost retention of existing staff and ensure the NHS remains an attractive career choice for new recruits.

The Government recognises that a cancer-specific approach is needed to meet the challenges in cancer care, and to improve outcomes for people living with cancer. Following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will publish a new national cancer plan, which will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients. We will continue to ensure that we train the staff we need to ensure patients are cared for by the right professional, when and where they need it, and the cancer plan will reflect this.

We are now in discussions about what form that plan should take, and what its relationship to the 10-Year Health Plan and the Government’s wider Health Mission should be, and will provide updates on this in due course.