Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of including a targeted additional dose of radiotherapy within the National Cancer Plan.

No assessment has been made. This Government’s Health Mission will aim to make progress against major diseases, including cancer.

The NHS Long-Term Plan sets out the National Health Service’s key ambitions on cancer to increase the number of cancers diagnosed at stages one and two to 75% by 2028 and to increase the number of people surviving cancer for five years by 55,000 as a result.

NHS England is the accountable commissioner for radiotherapy which is a prescribed specialised service. Standards for service delivery are set out in the service specification, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/group-b/b01/