Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the effectiveness of the NHS England Help Us Help You campaign on cancer symptom awareness.

The Department and NHS England recognise the importance of directly targeting awareness campaigns at areas that we know will make a difference, to increase awareness of cancer symptoms and encourage people to get checked.

NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and to address the barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns are evaluated in line with best practice, considering media metrics, campaign awareness, understanding and intention to act, along with analysis of operational data.

The most recent phases of Help Us Help You, which ran between January and March 2025, saw increases in symptom knowledge and intention to act. NHS England is undertaking operational data analysis, with early data showing an increase in cancer diagnosis at the same time as campaign activity. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms, as well as encouraging body awareness to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point.