Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to establish clear milestones and accountability for improving radiotherapy services under the National Cancer Plan.

The National Cancer Plan sets out specific commitments to improve and reform radiotherapy services and ensure that patients have timely access to high-quality radiotherapy treatments no matter their location. Each commitment within the plan has set delivery deadlines and progress on each commitment is closely monitored by departmental officials and can be escalated to ministers if progress falls off track.

The recently reformed National Cancer Board is responsible for tracking the progress of the commitments within the plan and providing regular updates to ministers. Ministers will publish an annual summary of progress, along with a more in-depth report after three years to assess where the plan needs updating and refreshing to ensure that is has the greatest impact. The board has appointed independent leads to monitor the impact of the plan on health inequalities, rarer cancers, and children and young people’s cancers to reduce disparities and champion progress across these themes.