Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the APPG on Brain Tumours Inquiry Report entitled Pathway to A Cure, whether his Department plans to work with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to encourage the inclusion of brain tumour patients in early phase cancer trials.

The Department of Health and Social Care welcomes the All-Party Parliamentary Group report, recommendations of which continue to be worked through with the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, and UK Research and Innovation and the Medical Research Council.

A series of new measures are to be introduced by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency with support from partners to make it faster and easier to gain approval and to run clinical trials in the United Kingdom. As part of this, comprehensive new guidance, co-designed with various stakeholder groups, will be introduced to accompany the new legislative measures. This will ensure that UK clinical trials work in partnership with patients and the public and are representative of the diversity of people who may benefit from a medicine if the data generated ultimately lead to regulatory approval. The guidance will outline how to include patients meaningfully into the design and conduct of trials, and how to achieve diversity in trials in a way that is proportionate and achieves the best results.