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 the symptoms of bladder cancer.

Public Health England (PHE) ran an awareness campaign for bladder cancer highlighting the most common symptom, ‘blood in pee’, in 2016. The national campaign ran from 16 February to 31 March.

In addition, PHE ran a respiratory symptoms ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ campaign, focusing on the symptoms of a persistent cough and inappropriate breathlessness, to encourage people with these symptoms to go to their general practitioner. The national campaign targeted heart disease, lung disease, including lung cancer and ran from 14 July to 16 October.

PHE is currently developing a generic approach which will enable us to cover a range of symptoms in one campaign. A regional pilot campaign to raise awareness of a range of abdominal symptoms that can indicate a wider number of cancers, including bladder, and the need to visit the doctor promptly with these symptoms will run from 9 February until 31 March 2017 in the East and West Midlands. This work has been developed with the help of a number of experts, including clinicians and charities.

As usual, the regional pilot will be evaluated and results will help inform decisions about whether to expand this campaign nationally in the future.