Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what action they are taking to tackle childhood cancer.

The Government is taking steps to tackle childhood cancer, by improving early diagnosis, delivering more research, and driving progress in genomic medicine.

Improving early diagnosis is essential for children with cancer. The National Health Service is working to deliver the ambition set in its Long Term Plan to diagnose 75% of cancers at stages one and two by 2028. This is backed by £2.3 billion funding to transform diagnostic services, with 123 new community diagnostic centres opened, giving millions of patients the chance to access quicker, more convenient checks. In addition, the NHS is expanding direct access to diagnostic scans across all general practitioner (GP) practices, helping GPs recognise cancer symptoms, cutting waiting times and speeding up diagnosis.

Delivering more research is key to understanding the causes of childhood cancer and increasing survival rates. Over the past five years, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has invested £13.9 million on 38 research projects into childhood cancers. In addition, alongside Cancer Research UK, health departments across the United Kingdom are jointly funding a network of 18 Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres, collectively investing more than £35 million between 2017 and 2022, driving the discovery, development, and testing of new treatments. This includes the Paediatric Network that the NIHR co-funds with The Little Princess Trust, dedicated to early-phase research on childhood cancers.

Ensuring all children with cancer get access to ground-breaking genomic medicine is vital. The NHS now offers all children with cancer whole genome sequencing, to enable comprehensive and precise diagnosis and personalised treatments. In July, the Government announced a multi-year partnership agreement with the pharmaceutical giant BioNTech which will accelerate the company's clinical trials in the UK and could provide up to 10,000 patients with personalised cancer immunotherapies by 2030.

In addition, the Department is taking steps to better understand the landscape of childhood cancer with experts, aided by Dame Caroline Dinenage MP.

Through improving diagnosis, encouraging research, and ensuring access to ground-breaking treatment, the Government will continue to take steps to tackle childhood cancer.