Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to (a) fund and (b) implement a national awareness campaign for mouth cancer to help improve (i) early detection and (ii) public understanding of the disease.

NHS England runs campaigns, most recently in early 2025, to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and to address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible if they notice a change in their health. The campaigns have focused on recognising a range of symptoms, as well as encouraging general body awareness, to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point. This has included symptoms of mouth cancers in wider campaign messages.

In addition, NHS England is working in partnership with major supermarket chains to include messages about common cancer symptoms on the packaging of relevant products. This has included specific messaging on mouth cancer symptoms on toothpaste and mouthwash packaging.

NHS England and other National Health Service organisations, nationally and locally, publish information on the signs and symptoms of many different types of cancer, including mouth cancer. This information can be found at sources like the NHS.UK website, which is available at the following link:

https://www.nhs.uk/