Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to increase his Department's investment in cancer services; whether NHS England plans to provide increased funding to clinical reference groups to ensure they have sufficient resources to improve specialised services; and if he will create a recognised cancer leadership team to provide support and strategic oversight to NHS England, Public Health England (PHE) and his Department, in conjunction with the introduction of cancer lead roles at PHE and his Department.

On 11 January, NHS England announced a new independent cancer taskforce to develop a five-year action plan for cancer services that will improve survival rates and save thousands of lives. It will produce a new cross-system national cancer strategy to 2020, building on NHS England’s vision for improving cancer outcomes as set out in the NHS Five Year Forward View.

The taskforce will work in partnership with the cancer community and other health system leaders, and will be chaired by Dr Harpal Kumar, Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK. It will include cancer specialist doctors and clinicians, patients groups and charity leaders, including Macmillan Cancer Support, Public Health England, local councils, and the Royal College of general practitioners.

The action plan will set a clear direction covering the whole cancer pathway from prevention to living with and beyond cancer and end-of-life care and address issues such as data, workforce and research. It will also consider how services need to develop and innovate in future. The taskforce will assess the opportunity for improved cancer care and produce a statement of intent by March 2015, with the new strategy to be published in the summer.

NHS England has also launched a major new programme to test innovative ways of diagnosing cancer more quickly at more than 60 sites across the country, and committed a further £15 million over three years to evaluate and treat patients with a type of modern radiotherapy.

Decisions about future funding for cancer services and any changes to the structures nationally to support the delivery of cancer commissioning will be taken in light of the output from the Cancer Taskforce. Specialised commissioning teams will negotiate contracts with providers for 2015-16 in line with NHS England’s published commissioning intentions.