Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to raise awareness of ovarian cancer.

Public Health England’s (PHE) Be Clear on Cancer (BCOC) campaigns aim to raise awareness of the symptoms of cancer and encourage symptomatic patients to present earlier. BCOC campaigns are tested at a local and regional level and are subject to a comprehensive evaluation process, the results of which are assessed thoroughly before a decision is taken on whether to run campaigns nationally throughout England.

PHE ran a regional BCOC ovarian pilot campaign from 10 February to 16 March 2014 in the North West of England Television region. The campaign was aimed at women over 50, the age group most at risk of developing ovarian cancer, and their friends and family to raise awareness of bloating as a symptom of ovarian cancer and to encourage women with this symptom to visit their general practitioner.

The Department, PHE and NHS England met with the ovarian cancer charities on 16 June and it was agreed that they would continue to work with the ovarian charities to keep the ovarian regional campaign under review and to explore how we can increase public awareness of ovarian cancer.

On 23 June I spoke at the Target Ovarian Cancer event in Parliament in order to help raise awareness of this cancer and its symptoms.