Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of treatment provision for people diagnosed with cervical cancer.

The independent Cancer Taskforce published its report, Achieving World-Class Cancer Outcomes: A strategy for England 2015-2020, in July 2015 and it represented the consensus views of the whole cancer community. The Government has accepted all 96 recommendations in the strategy, and implementation is being led by NHS England’s National Cancer Transformation Board.

The strategy set out a vision for what cancer patients should expect from the health service including access to the best effective treatments with minimal side effects.

As part of this, on 26 October 2015, NHS England announced a £130 million fund to modernise radiotherapy across England. This will ensure that, over the next two years, older Linac radiotherapy equipment being used by hospitals across the country will be upgraded or replaced, ensuring patients get access to the latest leading edge technology regardless of where they live.

Over the next two years the fund will enable half of the five year modernisation programme recommended by the independent Cancer Taskforce. The investment will pay for over 100 replacements or upgrades of radiotherapy machines in hospitals around England.

In addition, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published a range of guidance on the treatment and screening of cervical cancer and further information is available at:

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/conditions-and-diseases/cancer/cervical-cancer