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 help ensure that people with liver (b) cirrhosis, (b) advanced liver disease and (c) those at high risk of liver cancer receive systematic (i) surveillance and (ii) early diagnosis.

As part of a program to transform liver disease outcomes we will work with partners, including the British Liver Trust, to raise awareness and address the stigma related to hazardous and harmful levels of alcohol use, obesity, and viral hepatitis, which are key drivers of liver disease.

We will improve early detection of liver disease by developing best practice diagnostic pathways for primary care with agreed common referral thresholds. This includes exploring innovative approaches to increasing early detection, such as Intelligent Liver Function Testing, and improving access to treatments for liver disease, thereby tackling health inequalities in relation to access, uptake, patient experience, and outcomes.

We will continue to reach out to the communities that are worst affected by liver disease through the Community Liver Health Checks programme to proactively identify people with undiagnosed liver disease, who are suitable for liver cancer surveillance. The number of mobile liver scanning teams has almost doubled in the last two years. Over 100,000 people have had a fibroscan of their liver, and over 8,000 have been referred on for vital liver cancer checks since the programme began.

My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has announced that a National Cancer Plan for England will be published in the new year. It will seek to improve every aspect of cancer care to better the experiences and outcomes for people with cancer, including for liver cancer. Our goal is to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer over the next 10 years.