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 (a) tackle regional inequalities in respect of lung cancer and (b) improve (i) the timeliness of referrals for treatment, (ii) early diagnosis and (iii) mortality rates among populations at risk of that disease.

The National Lung Cancer Audit has been collecting data nationally since 2005 to ensure care meets standards and seeks to reduce unwarranted variation across the country. Targeted lung health check projects are now running in parts of the country with the highest rates of mortality from lung cancer, with 20 new locations recently confirmed for 2022/23.

To improve the timeliness of referrals, NHS England and NHS Improvement have introduced the Faster Diagnosis Standard, to measure the number of patients receiving a diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within 28 days of a referral. NHS England and NHS Improvement’s ‘Help us help you’ campaign is encouraging people to come forward with symptoms, with a specific lung cancer campaign from August 2021.

Lung cancer patients in England will be the first in Europe to be offered Sotorasib, a revolutionary new drug to prevent the growth of tumours. All radiotherapy centres in England are now able to deliver stereotactic ablative radiotherapy for treating certain kinds of lung cancer without the need for surgery.