Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department plans to shorten the diagnostic pathway for ovarian cancer by allowing the CA125 blood test and ultrasound to be undertaken at the same time.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Department is supporting NHS England in developing Best Practice Timed pathways, to support the ongoing improvement effort to shorten diagnosis pathways, reduce variation, improve patient experience of care, and meet the Faster Diagnosis Standard. This standard ensures patients are told they have cancer, or that cancer is ruled out, within 28 days of urgent cancer referral from general practice or screening service.
In March 2023, NHS England published guidance for local health and care systems to implement a timed gynaecological cancer diagnostic pathway, including for ovarian cancer. The gynaecological pathway ensures that at day zero, when presenting with symptoms, an ultrasound and a minimum data set is obtained, which includes a full blood count. For patients with suspected ovarian cancer, the minimum dataset should also include tumour marker CA125, with confirmation of suspicious features of ovarian cancer on ultrasound.
The guidance further ensures that patients with persistent abdominal symptoms, raised CA125, and a normal pelvic scan should be referred through the non-specific symptoms rapid diagnostic centre pathway. Women over 50 years old with elevated CA125 and palpable mass or ascites, or both, or with a previous ultrasound with risk of malignancy, should be referred straight to a computed tomography scan.
Mar. 27 2024
Source Page: Early and locally advanced breast cancer: diagnosis and management - Neoadjuvant chemotherapy and ovarian function suppression (update)Found: Early and locally advanced breast cancer: diagnosis and management - Neoadjuvant chemotherapy and ovarian
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department is taking steps to tackle regional variations in early diagnosis of ovarian cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
NHS England is taking a wide range of activity to increase awareness and early diagnosis of, as well as tackle regional variations in, ovarian cancer. Since 2020 NHS England has run several Help Us Help You campaigns, that have included a focus on abdominal symptoms which, amongst other abdominal cancers, can be indicative of ovarian cancer.
NHS England relaunched the Help Us Help You cancer campaign on the 8 January 2024, to encourage people to get in touch with their general practitioner if they notice, or are worried about, symptoms that could be cancer. The campaign address barriers to people coming forward with suspected signs of cancer in general, and is not specific to ovarian cancer.
Raising awareness and improving early diagnosis of cancers, including ovarian cancer, remains a priority across all regions in England. NHS England is working towards the NHS Long Term Plan ambition of diagnosing 75% of stageable cancers at stage one and two by 2028. Achieving this will mean that, from 2028, around 55,000 more people each year will survive their cancer for at least five years after diagnosis.
To help increase cancer diagnosis rates, as of February 2024, there are 154 community diagnostic centres (CDCs) open with over six million checks carried out, with the aim of having 160 CDCs open by March 2025. We also plan to transform the way the National Health Service provides elective care, by increasing activity at dedicated and protected surgical hubs. These will help separate elective care facilities from urgent and emergency care, including for ovarian cancer. At present, the surgical hubs are focusing on a number of specialities, including gynaecology.
The NHS is improving pathways to get people diagnosed faster once they are referred, and is looking into alternative routes into the system, including non-specific symptom (NSS) pathways for patients who do not fit clearly into a single urgent cancer referral pathway, but who are at risk of being diagnosed with cancer. This will help support faster ovarian cancer diagnosis. 108 NSS pathways are currently operational, with more in development.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to increase early diagnosis of ovarian cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
NHS England is taking a wide range of activity to increase awareness and early diagnosis of, as well as tackle regional variations in, ovarian cancer. Since 2020 NHS England has run several Help Us Help You campaigns, that have included a focus on abdominal symptoms which, amongst other abdominal cancers, can be indicative of ovarian cancer.
NHS England relaunched the Help Us Help You cancer campaign on the 8 January 2024, to encourage people to get in touch with their general practitioner if they notice, or are worried about, symptoms that could be cancer. The campaign address barriers to people coming forward with suspected signs of cancer in general, and is not specific to ovarian cancer.
Raising awareness and improving early diagnosis of cancers, including ovarian cancer, remains a priority across all regions in England. NHS England is working towards the NHS Long Term Plan ambition of diagnosing 75% of stageable cancers at stage one and two by 2028. Achieving this will mean that, from 2028, around 55,000 more people each year will survive their cancer for at least five years after diagnosis.
To help increase cancer diagnosis rates, as of February 2024, there are 154 community diagnostic centres (CDCs) open with over six million checks carried out, with the aim of having 160 CDCs open by March 2025. We also plan to transform the way the National Health Service provides elective care, by increasing activity at dedicated and protected surgical hubs. These will help separate elective care facilities from urgent and emergency care, including for ovarian cancer. At present, the surgical hubs are focusing on a number of specialities, including gynaecology.
The NHS is improving pathways to get people diagnosed faster once they are referred, and is looking into alternative routes into the system, including non-specific symptom (NSS) pathways for patients who do not fit clearly into a single urgent cancer referral pathway, but who are at risk of being diagnosed with cancer. This will help support faster ovarian cancer diagnosis. 108 NSS pathways are currently operational, with more in development.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to improve the rate of early diagnosis of (a) bowel and (b) bowel-related cancers.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Department is taking steps to improve the rate of early diagnosis for all cancers, including bowel and bowel-related cancers, and is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan, for tackling the COVID-19 related backlogs in elective care. This includes plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment.
NHS England is working to meet the Faster Diagnosis Standard, which sets a target of 28 days from urgent referral by a general practitioner or screening programme to patients being told that they have cancer, or that cancer is ruled out. To achieve this target NHS England has: streamlined bowel cancer pathways by implementing faecal immunochemical testing triage for patients in primary and secondary care settings on a suspected cancer pathway; implemented non-symptom specific pathways for patients who present with non-specific symptoms, or combinations of non-specific symptoms, that can indicate several different cancers; and has opened community diagnostic centres across England, expanding diagnostic capacity and by prioritising this capacity for cancer services.
In 2023 the NHS England’s Help Us Help You campaign urged people to take up the offer of bowel screening when invited, and the screening offer for the bowel screening programme is being gradually extended from age 60 down to 50 years old by 2025, ensuring more people are screened and potentially diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage. The National Health Service is also now offering routine preventative bowel cancer screening to thousands of people in England with a genetic condition, Lynch syndrome, that increases their chance of developing bowel cancer and other certain other cancers. This gives the NHS a better chance of finding cancers at a time when they can be more easily and effectively treated.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that people with lower gastrointestinal cancers are diagnosed in line with the faster diagnosis standard.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Department is taking steps to achieve the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS), which aims to ensure people with cancer or suspected cancer, including lower gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, are diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days of referral. The Department is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 related backlogs in elective care, which includes plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment.
To achieve the FDS target specifically, NHS England have implemented a timed pathway for lower GI cancer, by requiring faecal immunochemical testing (FIT) for patients in primary and secondary care settings on a suspected lower GI cancer pathway. FIT testing prevents patients from having unnecessary colonoscopies, freeing up capacity for these procedures, and ensuring the most urgent symptomatic patients are seen more quickly. Across 2022/2023, the proportion of lower GI referrals with a related FIT test rose from 24% to 69%.
NHS England is also implementing non symptom specific pathways (NSS) for patients who present with non-specific symptoms or combinations of non-specific symptoms that can indicate several different cancers, including symptoms that may indicate lower GI cancers.
In addition, at the 2021 Spending Review the Government awarded £2.3 billion to transform diagnostic services from 2022 to 2025, most of which will help increase the number of community diagnostic centres (CDCs) up to 160 by March 2025, prioritising CDCs for cancer services. General practice teams have also been given direct access to tests like computed tomography scans, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasounds helping to cut waiting times and speed up the diagnosis of, or ruling out of, cancer. This funding is also being used to expand endoscopy capacity within acute settings, and in CDCs.
Mar. 24 2010
Source Page: Table showing a count of Finished Admission Episodes where the was a primary diagnosis and deaths of Skin Cancer in London Primary Care Trusts (PCT) of responsibility for 2000/01 to 2008/09. 3 p.Found: Table showing a count of Finished Admission Episodes where the was a primary diagnosis and deaths of
Mar. 17 2010
Source Page: Table showing A count of Finished Admission Episodes and Emergency Admission Episodes where the was a primary diagnosis of (i) Lung Cancer, (ii) Bowel cancer, (iii) Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer and (iv) Haematological cancer for England and by PCT of responsibility for 2004/05 to 2008/09. 48 p.Found: showing A count of Finished Admission Episodes and Emergency Admission Episodes where the was a primary diagnosis
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of patients who received an urgent GP referral for a suspected cancer in the last six months have (a) been diagnosed with cancer and (b) received confirmation that cancer has not been detected within 28 days of their referral.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The following table shows the amount of people that were either informed that they had cancer, or received an all clear, in the past six months for which data is available, namely between June and November 2023, and the proportions of people that were told this within 28 days from an urgent referral:
Pathway End Reason | Total told | Told within 28 days | Percentage told outcome within 28 days |
Diagnosis of cancer | 91,369 | 46,841 | 51.3% |
Ruling out of cancer | 1,379,738 | 1,006,233 | 72.9% |
Source: NHS England
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to use (a) screening and (b) enhanced testing to increase early diagnosis rates for prostate cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) does not currently recommend screening for prostate cancer as the current test, the Prostate Specific Antigen test, does not meet the required accuracy for use in a national screening programme. Current methods offer insufficient benefit in relation to harms caused by overdiagnosis, which may lead to invasive investigative procedures and unnecessary treatment, to warrant roll out as an organised screening programme. The UK NSC is due to review prostate cancer again in 2024 and will consider new evidence published between the two reviews.
In November 2023 we announced we will be funding a £42 million screening trial with Prostate Cancer UK to find ways of detecting country’s most common male cancer earlier. The first-of-its-kind trial, called TRANSFORM, will use innovative screening methods like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning to detect prostate cancer, and it will see hundreds of thousands of men across the country participating.
Steps have been taken to use enhanced testing to increase early diagnosis rates for prostate cancer; NHS England have streamlined cancer pathways, including implementing a best timed prostate cancer diagnostic pathway so that those suspected of prostate cancer receive a multi-parametric MRI scan first, which ensures only those men most at-risk undergo an invasive biopsy. Furthermore, to boost early diagnosis NHS England is supporting three pilots, including the Man Van as part of the COVID-19 catch up cancer initiative. The Man Van was launched in March 2022 to provide free health checks for men and boost early diagnosis of prostate cancer.
In addition, backed by £2.3 billion capital funding, the department is expanding diagnostic capacity across the National Health Service by rolling out more Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs), delivering vital tests, scans and checks. With 150 CDCs open already and up to 160 set to open by March 2025, these offer millions of patients the chance to access quicker, more convenient checks outside of hospitals, with capacity prioritised for cancer. This is contributing to the elective recovery delivery plan ambition for 75% of patients urgently referred by their general practice for suspected cancer to receive a diagnosis or have cancer ruled out within 28 days.