Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 25 March 2025 to Question 38918 on Cancer: Young People, what steps (a) his Department and (b) the National Institute for Health and Care Research has taken to (i) enrol 50 per cent of young people with cancer into clinical trials by March 2025 and (ii) publish data on this target.

To support the delivery of this ambition, the Department, through NHS England, has put in place new national service specifications, covering both Principal Treatment Centre and associated Teenage and Young Adult (TYA) Designated Hospital provision, and has established networks to oversee pathways of care, coordinate clinical trial access, and develop local strategies to increase clinical trial recruitment. Alongside this, NHS England has also introduced a metric to monitor trial participation within the TYA Cancer Quality Dashboard.

The Department-funded National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funds research and research infrastructure, which supports patients and the public to participate in high-quality research, including clinical research for teenagers and young adults with cancer.

The Department does not hold data on the overall percentage of children and young people with cancer that are enrolled into clinical trials nationwide, but does collect data on general participation through NIHR funded research infrastructure. The Department reports on this data where it is appropriate to do so.