Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department will take to improve the speed of diagnosis for teenagers and young adults with cancer within the 10-year Health plan.

As part of the work to develop a 10-Year Health Plan, we will carefully be considering policies, including those that impact teenagers and young adults with cancer, with input from the public, patients, health staff, and our partners, as we develop the plan.

We have also launched a significant public engagement process, and we would encourage all those with an interest in the way teenagers and young adults with cancer receive care, and who are aged 16 years old or over, to take part in that process, so that we can fully understand what is not working as well as it should and what the potential solutions are. This can be done via the online portal, which is available at the following link:

https://change.nhs.uk/en-GB/

We plan to run engagement events with children and young people in the new year and are working with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Children’s Commissioner, the National Children’s Bureau, and other partners to ensure we hear from children affected by ill health.

Following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, the Department will publish a National Cancer Plan. We are committed to ensuring that the needs of children and young people with cancer are carefully considered in the National Cancer Plan, and will set out further details in due course.

In order to maximise our potential to be a world leader and develop a more competitive, efficient and accessible clinical research system, the Department is committed to implementing recommendations from the Lord O'Shaughnessy independent review of commercial clinical trials in full.