Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he is planning to introduce targeted measures to tackle the specific challenges for patients with less survivable cancers through the National Cancer Plan.

Reducing the number of lives lost to cancer is a key aim of the National Cancer Plan, which will be published in the new year. The plan will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for patients with cancer, including less survivable cancers, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment, ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, and ultimately driving up this country’s cancer survival rates.

The Department has been working closely with members of the Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce as part of the development of the plan to understand the specific challenges and to identify how to improve diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for less survivable cancers, which includes lung, pancreatic, liver, brain, oesophageal, and stomach cancer.