Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to help ensure that people who present with breast cancer symptoms are seen by a specialist within two weeks of referral.

The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ states that the number of patients waiting more than 62 days to start treatment from an urgent referral for cancer will return to pre-pandemic levels by March 2023. We are providing more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to support the recovery of elective services, including cancer treatment. This is in addition to the existing £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund.

This investment is also supporting the launch of community diagnostic centres which will deliver additional capacity for co-ordinated diagnostic checks, enabling faster diagnosis on a range of a clinical pathways, including cancer.