Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the interim report: Independent Review of National Cancer Screening Programmes, published May 2019, whether he plans to increase support for the recruitment and training of new cancer experts to enable NHS services to cope with increasing demand for cancer services over the next 10 years.

The National Health Service currently has a record number of specialist cancer staff and has committed to recruit an additional 1,500 staff across seven priority cancer specialisms by 2021.

The NHS interim People Plan, published on 3 June 2019, acknowledges that further action must be taken to increase the numbers of nurses in this field. It will undertake a detailed review of all branches of nursing in advance of the full People Plan, in order to identify steps to grow and recruit a world class cancer workforce to the NHS.