Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the early (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment of pancreatic cancer in (a) Mid Cheshire constituency, (b) Cheshire and (c) England.

The Department is working with NHS England to deliver interventions to improve outcomes for those with pancreatic cancer across England, including Cheshire and mid-Cheshire.

Early diagnosis is imperative to improving outcomes for all types of cancer, especially pancreatic due to the non-specific nature of its symptoms. As the first step to ensuring faster diagnosis and treatment, we will deliver an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week.

For pancreatic cancer specifically, NHS England is providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for those at inherited high-risk to identify lesions before they develop into cancer. NHS England is additionally creating pathways to support faster referral routes for people with non-specific symptoms and is increasing direct access for general practitioners to diagnostic tests.

NHS England is also funding a new audit into pancreatic cancer, aiming to provide regular and timely evidence to cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, to increase the consistency of access to treatments and to stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients.

Information on the average time to diagnose pancreatic cancer in Chester, Cheshire and England is not available in the format requested.