Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve (a) early intervention and (b) treatment outcomes for ovarian cancer.

It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service in catching cancer, including ovarian cancer, as early as possible, to treat it faster and more effectively, and thereby improve outcomes. This is supported by the NHS’s current key ambition on cancer, to increase the number of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 to 75%, to improve treatment outcomes and survivorship.

To improve early intervention, NHS England is running the Help Us, Help You (HUHY) campaign, which was relaunched on 8 January 2024. The HUHY campaign seeks to address the barriers that are deterring patients from accessing the NHS. The current HUHY campaign is focused on addressing fear of cancer as a barrier to presentation across all cancer types.

The NHS Cancer Programme has commissioned six new cancer clinical audits, which includes ovarian cancer, to provide timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, increase the consistency of access to treatments, and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. The Royal College of Surgeons began work on this audit in October 2022, and the first outcomes are expected this September 2024.