Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the NHS Five Year Forward View taskforce on cancer services will report back on their initial assessment of opportunities to improve cancer care before March 2015; and when in 2015 they will present the new five year strategy.

The independent Cancer Taskforce has been set up to produce a new cross-system national cancer strategy to take us through the next five years to 2020, building on NHS England’s vision for improving cancer outcomes set out in the NHS Five Year Forward View. It has been set up in partnership with the cancer community and other health system leaders, and is chaired by the Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK.

The new strategy will set a clear direction covering the whole cancer pathway from prevention to end of life care, including molecular diagnostics. The Taskforce will produce a statement of intent this month, and the new strategy will be published in summer 2015.