Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 19 September (HL727), what steps they are taking to improve the low recording of progesterone receptor status for breast cancer in England, as identified by the National Audit for Metastatic Breast Cancer report State of the Nation 2024, published in September.

NHS England funded the National Audit for Metastatic Breast Cancer to reduce unwarranted variation in treatments and outcomes for patients with metastatic breast cancer. Outcomes from the audit will support National Health Services to increase the consistency of access to treatments, and help guide quality improvement initiatives. Officials at the Department and NHS England are in the process of considering the audit’s findings and next steps. To drive up the completeness of data for breast cancer, Progesterone Receptor status is already collected as part of the NHS Cancer Outcomes and Services Data set.