Brain: Tumours

(asked on 13th April 2016) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the NHS is taking to improve the early diagnosis of brain tumours.


Answered by
 Portrait
Jane Ellison
This question was answered on 22nd April 2016

Improving early diagnosis of cancer is a priority for this Government. We have seen an increase of over 25% in general practitioner (GP) referrals for Magnetic Resonance Imaging for potential brain tumours, from 31,000 in 2012-13 to over 50,000 in 2014-15.

In order to continue to support GPs to identify patients whose symptoms may indicate cancer and urgently refer them as appropriate, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published an updated suspected cancer referral guideline in June 2015. The guideline includes new recommendations for brain tumours in adults and children and young people. NICE noted that more lives could be saved each year in England if GPs followed the new guideline, which encourages GPs to think of cancer sooner and lower the referral threshold.

Following publication of the updated guideline, the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) has worked in collaboration with Cancer Research UK (CRUK) on a programme of regional update events for GPs to promote the new guideline. RCGP and CRUK have also worked to develop three summary referral guidelines for GPs to enable them to adopt the guideline. The British Medical Journal has published two summaries including one for children and young adults and Macmillan Cancer Support has produced an updated Rapid Referral Toolkit. All the summary guidelines and the toolkit are available on the Cancer Research UK website at:

www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/learning-and-development-tools/nice-cancer-referral-guidelines

NHS England’s Accelerate, Coordinate, Evaluate (ACE) pilots are exploring new models for delivering a diagnosis quickly and effectively, including piloting a multi-disciplinary diagnostic centre, which we hope will be particularly effective for patients with vague or unclear symptoms, although these pilots are primarily aimed at adults in the first instance.

More generally, improving early diagnosis of cancer was clearly highlighted as a strategic priority in Achieving World-Class Cancer Outcomes A Strategy for England 2015-2020, published in July 2015 by the Independent Cancer Taskforce.

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