Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an estimate of the average time taken to diagnose pancreatic cancer in Lewisham West and Penge constituency.

Data on the average time taken to diagnose pancreatic cancer is not published by NHS England who are responsible for publishing cancer waiting times data. NHS England is working to meet the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS), which sets a target of 28 days from urgent referral by a general practitioner or screening programme to patients being told that they have cancer, or that cancer is ruled out. Latest published data from February 2024 shows FDS performance was 78.1% nationally. Of those patients referred to Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust in February 2024, 81.2% received a diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within four weeks which was above the 75% standard. For the same period 76.2% of patients referred to providers part of NHS South East London Integrated Care Board received a diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within 28 days.

Data on FDS does not individualise pancreatic cancer specifically, however it does include suspected upper gastrointestinal (GI) cancer, which encompasses pancreatic cancer, at provider level. Of those patients referred to Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust for suspected GI cancer in February 2024, 82.3% received a diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within four weeks.

The Department is taking steps to reduce cancer treatment waiting times across England, including the time between an urgent general practitioner referral and the commencement of treatment. The Government is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care and plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment activity.