Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that cancer test results requested by secondary care are routinely shared with patients' GPs in a timely manner.

The Government is supporting NHS England to ensure that information on diagnoses and treatment, including cancer test results, are shared between services routinely and in a timely manner.

NHS England has been supporting National Health Service trusts and foundation trusts in acquiring and developing the effectiveness of their electronic patient records, and support is available to bring trusts to an optimum level of digital maturity which will further reduce barriers to the sharing of information needed to treat patients. Further information can be found at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/data-and-clinical-record-sharing/

The Department supported the NHS’s Connecting Care Records programme which joins up information based on the individual rather than through one organisation. Through targeted investment, local Connecting Care Record systems have been established in all integrated commissioning board areas. 97% of trusts and 92% of primary care networks are now connected, in order to share information such as medications, allergies, test results, and clinical correspondence.

Furthermore, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has announced the intention for there to be a single patient record which would provide a comprehensive patient record, reducing duplication when patients have to repeat their medical history when interacting with the NHS.