Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to build partnerships with (a) charities, (b) community organisations and (c) people with lived experience of cancer.

The Department is committed to engaging with charities, community organisations, and people with lived experience of cancer to make sure that the Government hears and learns from different voices to meet the challenges in cancer care in England.

The forthcoming National Cancer Plan for England, due for publication in the second half of 2025, will have patients at its heart and will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway. The Department’s goal is to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer over the next 10 years, and the Department has sought the views of charities, community organisations, and people with lived experience of cancer to understand how we can do more to achieve this ambition.

The Department also has the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) Health and Wellbeing Programme, which is a mechanism through which the Department, NHS England, and UK Health Security Agency work together with VCSE organisations to: drive the transformation of health and care systems; promote equality; address health inequalities; and help people, families, and communities to achieve and maintain wellbeing.