Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of regional variations in access to prostate cancer diagnostics and treatment; whether the new £2.8 million investment in focal therapy will be distributed across all regions of England; and what steps he is taking to ensure that men diagnosed through screening have equitable access to the most effective treatments regardless of where they live.

We recognise that the provision of cancer services varies significantly across the country.

The NHS Cancer Programme commissions a series of cancer audits, including one on prostate cancer. The audits are a key way in which the Cancer Programme highlights and addresses variation, with priority recommendations adopted for action by Cancer Alliances.

On 9 January 2025, the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre published the latest prostate cancer audit report, and the next audit report is due for publication in October 2026. Cancer Alliances working with National Health Service trusts are identified as the target audience for audit recommendations, and responding to audit findings will be further facilitated by the implementation of Quality Improvement Collaboratives as outlined in the National Cancer Plan.

We are agreeing a new contract for the National Cancer Audit Collaboration centre starting in October 2027. As part of this, we plan to increase the specific focus on variation in access to the best treatment as opposed to early diagnosis and operational performance, both of which have considerable focus through other work of the cancer programme and in the National Cancer Plan.

The National Cancer Plan for England, published earlier this year, sets out how we will end this variation and ensure that everybody, no matter their postcode, has access to high-quality cancer care. Cancer Alliances up and down the country are already working with their local systems on this.

The recently announced investment of up to £2.8 million in focal therapies will strengthen existing provision in line with the expansion of the TRANSFORM trial for prostate cancer screening. Initial funding will support existing focal therapy sites to expand their focal therapy offer to ensure they can treat all suitable localised prostate cancers, irrespective of their location in the prostate.

All future expansion of focal therapy provision to new sites will include appropriate clinical and market engagement, and geographic inequalities will be taken into account.