Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to reduce the number of people who first receive a diagnosis of blood cancer in hospital A&E units.

The NHS Long Term Plan sets out an ambition that, by 2028, the proportion of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 will rise from around half to three-quarters of cancer patients.

Other key actions to increase an early diagnosis of blood cancer are:

- campaigns to raise greater awareness of the symptoms of cancer;

- lowering the threshold for referral by general practitioners (GPs);

- accelerate access to diagnosis and treatment and maximise the number of cancers that specialist’s can identify through screening; and

- roll-out of new Rapid Diagnostic Centres across the country to

- upgrade and bring together the latest diagnostic equipment and expertise.

The Long Term Plan also commits to invest £4.5 billion of new funding to establish Primary Care Networks based on neighbouring GP practices. The GP Contract, published on 6 February 2020, includes a new service specification for supporting early cancer diagnosis, including blood cancer.