Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that pathologists and genomics scientists work together to speed up the delivery of genomics results for lung cancer tissue samples.

Genomic testing in the National Health Service in England is provided through the NHS Genomic Medicine Service (NHS GMS) and is delivered by a national genomic testing network of seven NHS Genomic Laboratory Hubs (GLHs).

NHS England undertakes several activities to improve the delivery of cancer genomic testing, including through quarterly assurance meetings with the NHS GLHs and NHS GMS Alliances to address reporting delays and resolve backlogs, working with clinical experts to establish clinically relevant cancer genomic testing turnaround times and optimising cancer pathways to meet these times.

To support more extensive cancer genomic testing, NHS England is working to ensure collaboration between pathology and genomics networks to address issues including capacity, networking, and the optimisation of cancer tissue pathways, including for lung cancer tissue samples.