Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help improve outcomes for glioblastoma brain tumour patients.

NHS England and the Department are taking several steps to help improve outcomes for glioblastoma brain tumour patients. NHS England has worked with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission to designate centres of excellence in the management of brain tumours, with nine centres having achieved designation. The Mission has a workstream on training to expand the brain tumour treatment workforce in collaboration between National Health Service bodies, Royal Colleges and charities.

Further to this, in September 2024, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) announced new research funding opportunities for brain cancer research, including glioblastoma, spanning both adult and paediatric populations. This includes a national NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium, to ensure the most promising research opportunities are made available to adult and child patients and a new funding call to generate high quality evidence in brain tumour care, support and rehabilitation.

We are aware of Siobhain McDonagh's campaign, in memory of the late Baroness McDonagh, and are committed to working together to explore options.

We will get the NHS diagnosing cancer, including brain tumours, on time, diagnosing it earlier and treating it faster so more patients survive this horrible set of diseases, and we will improve patients’ experience across the system. To do this, we will address the challenges in diagnostic waiting times, providing the number of CT, MRI and other tests that are needed to reduce cancer waits.