Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help ensure the Major Conditions Strategy improves breast cancer outcomes for ethnic minority women.

Reducing inequalities and improving breast cancer outcomes for ethnic minority women, including black women, is a priority for the Government. To support this work, NHS England has commissioned six new cancer clinical audits, which will provide timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, increase the consistency of access to treatments, and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatments and outcomes for patients, including metastatic breast cancer. The Royal College of Surgeons began work on this audit in October 2022, and the first outcomes are expected in September 2024.

NHS England is also leading a programme of work to tackle healthcare inequalities centred around five clear priorities, which are set out in operational planning guidance for the health system. The Core20PLUS5 approach for adults has been rolled out as an NHS England framework to focus action on reducing inequalities on issues within the National Health Services’ direct influence, which are major contributors to inequalities in life expectancy through major conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and others, or Long-Term Plan priorities where stark inequalities are evident, such as maternity or severe mental illness.

The key actions for systems as highlighted in NHS England’s planning guidance for 2024/25 is to continue to deliver against the five strategic priorities for tackling health inequalities. Additionally, by the end of June 2024, NHS England aims to publish joined-up action plans to address health inequalities, and implement the Core20PLUS5 approach.

Improving earlier diagnosis of cancers, including breast cancer, is also a priority for the Government. The NHS has an ambition to diagnose 75% of cancers at stage 1 or 2 by 2028, which will help tens of thousands of people live for longer. Additionally, the new cancer standards developed and supported by cancer doctors and implemented in October 2023, will ensure patients are diagnosed faster, and that treatment starts earlier. In the 2023/24 Operational Planning Guidance, NHS England announced that it is providing over £390 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances in each of the next two years, to support the delivery of the strategy and the operational priorities for cancer, which includes increasing and prioritising diagnostic and treatment capacity.

Whilst the Major Conditions Strategy does not seek to describe everything that is being done, or could be done, to meet the challenges of individual conditions in silo, it instead focuses on the changes likely to make the most difference across the six groups of major conditions, including cancer.