Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential implications for his Department's policies of the recommendations of Blood Cancer UK's Action Plan.

The Department has not made a formal assessment of the potential implications of its policies based on the recommendations of Blood Cancer UK’s Action Plan.

However, we will get the National Health Service diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster. This is supported by NHS England’s key ambition on cancer to meet the Faster Diagnosis Standard, which sets a target of 28 days from urgent referral by a general practitioner or screening programme to patients being told that they have cancer, or that cancer is ruled out.

The Department is committed to implementing the recommendations of the Lord O'Shaughnessy review into commercial clinical trials, making sure that the United Kingdom leads the world in clinical trials, and to ensure that innovative, lifesaving treatments are accessible to NHS patients, including those with blood cancer.

Professor Lord Darzi has undertaken an independent investigation into the state of the NHS, the findings of which will feed into the Government’s 10-year plan to build a health service that is fit for the future. The Government will therefore set out any further priorities on cancer and health in due course.