Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help improve lobular breast cancer outcomes.

Improving early diagnosis of cancer, including lobular breast cancer, is a priority for NHS England. We will improve cancer survival rates and hit all National Health Service cancer waiting time targets, so that no patient waits longer than they should.

The NHS Breast Screening Programme offers all women in England between the ages of 50 years old and their 71st birthday the opportunity to be screened every three years for breast cancer, to help detect abnormalities and intervene early to reduce the number of lives lost to invasive breast cancer.

The Department invests £1.5 billion each year on research through its research delivery arm, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). NIHR research expenditure for all cancers was £133 million in 2023/24, reflecting its high priority.

We are proud to have invested £29 million into the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden NIHR Biological Research Centre in 2022, supporting their efforts to strengthen research into cancer, including lobular breast cancer. Wider investments into breast cancer research include a £1.3 million project to determine whether an abbreviated form of breast magnetic resonance imaging can detect breast cancers missed by screening through mammography, including lobular breast cancer.

The NIHR funds research on cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment and care, which saves lives. NIHR funds research in response to proposals received and would welcome applications from researchers on lobular breast cancer.