Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of Pancreatic Cancer UK's Optimal Care Pathway recommendations.
NHS England is delivering a range of interventions that are expected to increase early diagnosis, and improve outcomes for those with pancreatic cancer. This includes providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for those at inherited high-risk, to identify lesions before they develop into cancer and diagnose cancers sooner, creating new pathways to support faster referral routes for people with non-specific symptoms that could be linked to a range of cancer types, and increasing general practice direct access to diagnostic tests. NHS England has also formed an expert group to consider a pathway for hepato-pancreato-biliary cancers, including pancreatic cancer.