Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to raise awareness of womb cancer.

Public Health England (PHE) runs the ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ campaigns to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of specific cancers, and to encourage those with symptoms to see their doctor promptly. There are a number of cancers that are not covered by ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ including womb cancer.

A number of factors are taken into account when deciding which campaigns to develop and run, with one of the main criteria being the scope to save lives through earlier diagnosis and whether the cancer has a clear early sign or symptom that the general public can act upon should it arise. Given this, PHE is looking at developing an approach to raise awareness of generic symptoms that can indicate a wider number of cancers and the need to visit the doctor promptly with these symptoms. This work is currently in development with the input of a wide range of experts.

The decision on which cancers should be the focus of ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ campaigns is informed by a steering group, whose members include primary and secondary care clinicians, and key voluntary sector organisations.