Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to include policies on rare cancer prognosis in the national cancer plan.

My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has announced that a National Cancer Plan for England will be published this year. The Prime Minister’s Health Mission sets the objective of building a National Health Service fit for the future, and an essential part of this is achieving our goal to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer.

The National Cancer Plan will have patients at its heart and will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and earlier diagnosis to accessing treatment and aftercare, including personalised care and care planning. It will apply this to all cancer types, including rare cancers. It will seek to improve every aspect of cancer care to improve the experience and outcomes for people with cancer. Our goal is to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer over the next ten years.