Ovarian Cancer: Diagnosis

(asked on 17th January 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to increase early diagnosis of ovarian cancer.


Answered by
 Portrait
David Mowat
This question was answered on 25th January 2017

Improving early diagnosis of cancer is a priority for this Government.

NHS England’s Accelerate, Coordinate, Evaluate pilots are exploring new models for delivering a diagnosis of cancer quickly and effectively, including piloting multi-disciplinary diagnostic centres, which we hope will be particularly effective for patients with vague or unclear symptoms. If successful, NHS England will work with Cancer Alliances to support wider roll out across the country in future years.

An updated suspected cancer referral guideline by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) was published in June 2015 and supports general practitioners (GPs) in identifying patients and urgently referring them as appropriate where cancer is suspected. NICE noted that more lives could be saved each year in England if GPs followed the new guideline, which encourages GPs to think of cancer sooner and lowers the referral threshold.

Public Health England is developing a new strategic approach to the Be Clear on Cancer awareness raising campaigns which will enable them to cover a range of symptoms in one campaign. A regional pilot campaign to test the approach is planned to run in the East and West Midlands from February to March 2017 to raise awareness of a range of abdominal symptoms that can indicate a wider number of cancers, including ovarian cancer. The regional pilot will be evaluated and results will help inform decisions about how to expand this campaign in the future.

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