Cancer: Health

(asked on 5th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS Long Term Plan and NHS Planning Guidance commitments for 2019-20, what progress his Department has made on introducing an innovative quality of life metric to track and respond to the long-term impact of cancer; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Seema Kennedy Portrait
Seema Kennedy
This question was answered on 14th June 2019

As set out in the NHS Long Term Plan, an Implementation Framework will be published shortly which will set out the next steps the NHS will take to deliver the commitments and the national activity and support available to systems. The Implementation Framework will assist local health systems, who will build on the engagement already taking place across the country, in developing their strategic Long Term Plan implementation plan over the summer. NHS England and NHS Improvement will then publish a national implementation plan in the autumn.

As recommended in the Independent Cancer Taskforce report, NHS England has run a pilot project to test data collection methods and gather data to support the development of summary Quality of Life metric(s). Patients with breast, prostate and colorectal cancer in seven hospital trusts have been completing questionnaires, and up to May 2019, 3,700 patients had been invited and 1,914 patients completed questionnaires. The project is now entering a data analysis phase, and a recommendation on which statistics to use for the Quality of Life metric(s) is due by the end of the year.

Reticulating Splines