Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the size of the cancer backlog in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England; and what (i) planning and (ii) funding his Department is providing to tackle the cancer backlog in those areas.

Estimates of an overall backlog at regional and national level are complex due to the different cancer pathways, therefore there is not a single statistic. National Health Service England and NHS Improvement have estimated that up to 36,000 fewer people than expected have started cancer treatment in England.

We are committed to recovering cancer services by the end of March 2022 by returning to February 2020 levels for waiting times between a general practitioner appointment and referral and the number of people waiting for over 62 days for treatment. This applies to Coventry, the West Midlands and England. At the Spending Review we announced an extra £5.9 billion to support elective recovery, diagnostics and technology over the next three years.