Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking through research funding and innovation programmes to support the use of artificial intelligence in the development of personalised cancer treatments and vaccines.

The Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad (CVLP) is a platform that is increasing access and speeding up recruitment to clinical trials for personalised cancer vaccines and other immunotherapies for patients who have been diagnosed with cancer. In 2025, the scope of the CVLP was expanded beyond personalised cancer vaccines to also include other immunotherapies. NHS England is responsible for the overall delivery of the CVLP and has contracted the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit to manage the day-to-day delivery of the platform.

Government responsibility for delivering cancer research is shared between the Department for Health and Social Care, with research delivered by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation.

For example, the Early Detection using Information Technology trial is backed by £11 million of Government support via the NIHR. Almost 700,000 women from across the country will take part in a world-leading trial to test whether using artificial intelligence (AI) to support radiologists increases the number of cancers detected in women taking part in the national breast cancer screening programme.

Launching this June, the NIHR Innovation Catalyst is designed to accelerate the development and evaluation of innovative health technologies, such as AI. It brings together funding, infrastructure, and expertise to help innovators generate the evidence needed to move technologies more quickly towards real‑world use. Overall, it aims to get effective new technologies to patients faster.

The NIHR continues to welcome high quality applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including cancer. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to the public and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality.