Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 24 March (HL15339), whether they have plans to discuss with the charity Anthony Nolan the potential for children and young people with non-malignant conditions, who travel long distances to receive stem cell transplants and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, to be included in the new travel cost scheme.

Through the National Cancer Plan for England, the Government is committing up to £10 million a year to a new fund open to all children and young people in England with cancer and their families regardless of income, to support them with the cost of travelling to and from their treatment. This commitment sits alongside wider action to transform cancer care for children and young people.

The Department is currently working with its partners to define the scope and parameters of the scheme and further detail will be announced in due course.

Currently, the National Health Service runs schemes in England to provide financial assistance for travel to a hospital or other NHS premises for specialist treatment or diagnostics tests, following referral from a primary healthcare professional. The Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme provides financial assistance to patients in England who do not have a medical need for transport, but who require assistance with the costs of travelling to receive certain NHS services. The Non-Emergency Patient Transport Services provide funded transport where it is considered essential to ensuring an individual’s safety, safe mobilisation, condition management, or recovery.