Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to establish a single digital tracking system for cancer tissue samples provided for genomic testing so they can be tracked at every point of their journey.

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

The NHS GMS has a national digital programme to develop an order management system, which will enable the ordering and tracking of genomic test requests from the initial request of the genomic test, through to sample processing, and the return of genomic testing’s clinical results to clinicians. This system will include the ability for all appropriate users of the system to track the progress of cancer diagnostics, with the physical sample handling being managed by specialist Cellular Pathology Genomic Centres that are being established in each NHS GMS geography.