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 expand the roll out surveillance programmes to (a) identify people at highest risk of pancreatic cancer and (b) support earlier diagnosis.

Earlier diagnosis of cancers, including pancreatic cancer, is a priority for the Government. NHS England is working on case-finding approaches for less survivable cancers, where the evidence suggests this is appropriate. This includes a public-facing Family History Checker, which enables people, and their families, affected by pancreatic cancer to self-assess if they may inherit risk. Individuals identified as being at risk are referred directly to the European Registry of Hereditary Pancreatic Diseases research trial, which aims to understand inherited conditions of the pancreas. Referrals to the trial can be made by any healthcare professional across all health sectors or by individuals via self-referral, contributing to a centralised approach to case-finding.

The National Disease Registration Service has developed the National Inherited Cancer Predisposition Register (NICPR), which launched on 30 June. The NICPR looks at a wide range of cancers for which there is an increased inherited risk, including for less survivable cancers. It aims to identify high-risk individuals who are eligible for targeted screening and surveillance and will act as an electronic referral route into national screening programmes, where these exist.