Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has taken steps to increase workforce capacity for (a) cancer care and (b) radiotherapy treatment services.

The Department is working closely with NHS England to make sure we have the right workforce with the right skills up and down the country. This includes cancer care and radiotherapy treatment services.

As well as increasing the workforce, we will also be treating staff with the respect they deserve, improving their working conditions, and reforming the way they deliver care, so they deliver more care in the community and more preventative care.

We are committed to training the staff we need to get cancer patients seen on time. The Government will make sure the National Health Service has the staff it needs to be there for all of us when we need it.

In March 2024 there were over 35,400 full-time equivalent staff working across the key cancer-facing professions of clinical oncology, gastro-enterology, medical oncology, histopathology, clinical radiology, diagnostic and therapeutic radiography.