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 improve awareness of symptoms of (a) lung and (b) pancreatic cancer.

The Department is committed to improving symptom awareness of lung cancer and pancreatic cancer, and NHS England is also taking steps to improve awareness.

NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms as well as encouraging body awareness to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point. NHS England and other National Health Service organisations, nationally and locally, also publish information on the signs and symptoms of many different types of cancer, including lung cancer and pancreatic cancer. This information can be found on the NHS website.

The Department has also committed support to the Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce, which is a group of charities focusing on cancers with poor survival rates. This partnership focuses on raising awareness of less survivable cancers, including lung cancer and pancreatic cancer, so more people understand their symptoms and go to see their general practitioner if they have concerns.

As part of developing the forthcoming National Cancer Plan for England, the Department has been working with members of the Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce to identify how to improve diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for less survivable cancers, including lung cancer and pancreatic cancer.