Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to train, recruit and resource the breast cancer staff needed to fulfil the commitment in the NHS Long Term Plan to increase breast screening uptake.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has commissioned Baroness Dido Harding, working closely with Sir David Behan, to lead a number of programmes to engage with key National Health Service interests to develop a detailed workforce implementation plan. These programmes will consider detailed proposals to grow the workforce rapidly, including staff working on breast cancer screening, consider additional staff and skills required, build a supportive working culture in the NHS and ensure first rate leadership for NHS staff.

Following the publication of Health Education England's (HEE) first ever Cancer Workforce Plan in December 2017, there has been significant interest in training in radiographer reporting. HEE planned to invest in 300 more radiographers to start image interpretation and reporting courses by 2021. 150 radiographers commenced training in 2018/19 and 150 are expected to commence in 2019/20.