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 provide routine access to circulating tumour DNA blood tests to support the (a) detection and (b) treatment of breast cancer.

The Department remains committed to improving faster and earlier detection of breast cancer and will work to ensure that patients have timely access to lifesaving, innovative treatments. We have now exceeded our pledge to deliver an extra two million operations, scans, and appointments, having now delivered over four million more appointments as the first step to ensuring earlier and faster access to treatment. There are no current plans to provide routine access to circulating tumour DNA blood tests.

The Government’s wider investments into breast cancer research include a £1.3 million project to determine whether an abbreviated form of breast magnetic resonance imaging can detect breast cancers missed by screening through mammography, including lobular breast cancer. We are also proud to have invested £29 million into the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden National Institute for Health and Care Research Biological Research Centre in 2022, supporting their efforts to strengthen research into cancer, including breast cancer.