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 adequacy of the care available to young people diagnosed with cancer in Slough.

The Department recognises that cancer in children and young people is different to cancer in adults, and should be treated as such, particularly in regard to treatment, diagnosis, and wider support.

The Department is committed to getting the National Health Service diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster, so that more patients survive, including children, teenagers, and young adults (CTYA).

NHS England has published service specifications that set out the service standards required of all providers of CTYA cancer services. The requirements include ensuring that every patient has access to specialist care and reducing physical, emotional, and psychological morbidity arising from treatment for childhood cancer. The specifications are available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/group-b/b05/

The Department has also relaunched the Children and Young People’s Cancer Taskforce. Dame Caroline Dinenage and Professor Darren Hargrave have been appointed as its co-chairs, alongside Dr Sharna Shanmugavadivel as vice-chair. The taskforce will examine clinical and non-clinical ways to improve outcomes and patient experience for children and young people with cancer. This will feed into the Department’s wider work on the national cancer plan in England.