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 (a) support the rollout of nuclear medicines across the NHS and (b) prevent regional variations in access to those medicines.

Nuclear medicine is already used widely in the National Health Service in England to diagnose and treat a variety of diseases. NHS England and NHS Improvement routinely fund licensed medicines that have been recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence or off-label use of licensed medicines that have been approved via the NHS England clinical commissioning policy process.

NHS England and NHS Improvement commission positron emission tomography/computed tomography scan while other diagnostic imaging involving nuclear medicine is commissioned by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). It is for CCGs to commission those services according to the needs of their local population.