Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the ability of Health Education England to achieve the objectives of the Cancer Workforce Plan by 2021; and if he will outline the steps he is taking to develop that plan after 2021.

Health Education England (HEE) will publish an assessment of progress on the diagnostic radiography ambition once National Health Service Hospital and Community Health Service workforce statistics for March 2021 have been published by NHS Digital and analysed by HEE.

In 2021/22 HEE will continue implementation of the cancer workforce plan, including training grants for cancer nurse specialists and chemotherapy nurses, support for reporting radiographers and an increase in postgraduate medical training places across the key cancer medical professions of clinical radiology, oncology, histopathology, and gastroenterology.