Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of Pancreatic Cancer UK's Optimal Care Pathway recommendations.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
NHS England is delivering a range of interventions that are expected to increase early diagnosis, and improve outcomes for those with pancreatic cancer. This includes providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for those at inherited high-risk, to identify lesions before they develop into cancer and diagnose cancers sooner, creating new pathways to support faster referral routes for people with non-specific symptoms that could be linked to a range of cancer types, and increasing general practice direct access to diagnostic tests. NHS England has also formed an expert group to consider a pathway for hepato-pancreato-biliary cancers, including pancreatic cancer.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and East Dulwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an estimate of the average time taken to diagnose pancreatic cancer in Lewisham West and Penge constituency.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Data on the average time taken to diagnose pancreatic cancer is not published by NHS England who are responsible for publishing cancer waiting times data. NHS England is working to meet the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS), 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. Latest published data from February 2024 shows FDS performance was 78.1% nationally. Of those patients referred to Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust in February 2024, 81.2% received a diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within four weeks which was above the 75% standard. For the same period 76.2% of patients referred to providers part of NHS South East London Integrated Care Board received a diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within 28 days.
Data on FDS does not individualise pancreatic cancer specifically, however it does include suspected upper gastrointestinal (GI) cancer, which encompasses pancreatic cancer, at provider level. Of those patients referred to Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust for suspected GI cancer in February 2024, 82.3% received a diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within four weeks.
The Department is taking steps to reduce cancer treatment waiting times across England, including the time between an urgent general practitioner referral and the commencement of treatment. The Government is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care and 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 activity.
Nov. 07 2011
Source Page: Table showing number of a) male and b) female death where the underlying cause was pancreatic cancer by age group for health authorities in England and Wales, 1999 to 2010. 48 p.Found: Table showing number of a) male and b) female death where the underlying cause was pancreatic cancer
Mentions:
1: Briggs, Miles (Con - Lothian) Just under 900 people a year are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in Scotland, and pancreatic cancer - Speech Link
2: Wishart, Beatrice (LD - Shetland Islands) Cancer UK and Pancreatic Cancer Action Scotland. - Speech Link
3: Carson, Finlay (Con - Galloway and West Dumfries) I should say that Scotland is leading the way in pancreatic cancer innovation, with Pancreatic Cancer - Speech Link
4: Minto, Jenni (SNP - Argyll and Bute) In addition, I welcome all the work that is done by Pancreatic Cancer UK, Pancreatic Cancer Scotland - Speech Link
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
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 help improve pancreatic cancer outcomes in York Central constituency.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Working with NHS England, we are delivering a range of interventions that are expected to increase early diagnosis and improve outcomes for those with pancreatic cancer across England, including the York Central constituency. This includes providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for those at inherited high-risk to identify lesions before they develop into cancer and diagnose cancers sooner; creating new pathways to support faster referral routes for people with non-specific symptoms that could be linked to a range of cancer types; and increasing direct access for general practitioners to diagnostic tests.
To increase early diagnosis, NHS England is implementing non-symptom specific pathways (NSS) for patients who present with non-specific symptoms, or combinations of non-specific symptoms, to receive the right tests at the right time. There are currently 113 NSS pathways live with the aim to have full national coverage by March 2024.
NHS England is also funding a new audit into pancreatic cancer, the aim of which is to provide regular and timely evidence to cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, to increase the consistency of access to treatments and to stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. The Royal College of Surgeons began work on this audit in October 2022 and a scoping exercise in consultation with key stakeholders has taken place to shape the direction of the audit. The first report is expected in October 2024.
In addition, the Getting It Right First Time team in NHS England is undertaking a deep dive into pancreatic cancer, which will highlight actions National Health Service providers need to take to improve services, as well as gathering examples of good practice to share.
To encourage people to see their general practitioner if they notice symptoms that could be cancer, NHS England runs the Help Us, Help You campaigns, which address the barriers that deter patients from accessing the National Health Service. In addition, the NHS has allocated £10 million to trial innovations that may support earlier and more efficient diagnosis, including a trial for the PinPoint blood test and a new genetic test that may be used as a liquid biopsy for those with suspected pancreatic cancer.
Found: Name of organisation Pancreatic Cancer UK 3.
Sep. 18 2024
Source Page: Service specification: hepato-pancreatic biliary (HPB) – pancreatic and periampullary cancersFound: Service specification: hepato-pancreatic biliary (HPB) – pancreatic and periampullary cancers
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
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 all people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer who are eligible for clinical trials are able to access those trials.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Government has set out a vision for the Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery, which aims to create a patient-centred, pro-innovation, and digitally enabled clinical research environment. Key to achieving this vision is increasing participation in research to ensure that the research we support is inclusive and representative of the populations we serve.
The Department-funded National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funds research and research infrastructure which supports patients and the public to participate in high-quality research. For example, in financial year 2022/23, the NIHR Clinical Research Network supported 41 pancreatic cancer studies and recruited 1,004 participants to these studies.
In addition, the NIHR provides an online service called Be Part of Research which promotes participation in health and social care research by allowing users to search for relevant studies and register their interest. This makes it easier for people to find and take part in health and care research that is relevant to them.
When designing research studies, researchers consider inclusion and exclusion criteria carefully to ensure they are not unnecessarily excluding specific groups who would benefit from the outcome of their study. However, we are aware that inclusion and exclusion criteria can disproportionally exclude individuals from specific groups, for example older adults or pregnant women.
The Health Research Authority (HRA) is developing guidance to improve practices in this area. We are not aware that people with pancreatic cancer are routinely being excluded from studies, however, we know that sometimes people are automatically excluded from taking part, and this can be for good reasons. The guidance produced by the HRA will help researchers to consider if these people and any other groups of people may be unnecessarily excluded, and consider putting measures in place to address this.
Sep. 09 2024
Source Page: Communications regarding cancer strategy: FOI ReviewFound: Communications regarding cancer strategy: FOI Review
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had recent discussions with NHS England on introducing a promotional campaign to help patients recognise early symptoms of pancreatic cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has not had recent discussions with NHS England specifically on introducing a promotional campaign to recognise symptoms of pancreatic cancer.
NHS England is delivering a range of interventions that are expected to increase early diagnosis and improve outcomes for those with pancreatic cancer. This includes providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for those at inherited high-risk to identify lesions before they develop into cancer and diagnose cancers sooner, creating new pathways to support faster referral routes for people with non-specific symptoms that could be linked to a range of cancer types, and increasing general practice direct access to diagnostic tests. A group has been formed to consider a pathway for Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary cancers, including pancreatic cancer.
On the 8 January 2024, NHS England relaunched the Help Us Help You cancer campaigns, designed to increase earlier diagnosis of cancer by reducing barriers to seeking earlier help, as well as increasing body vigilance and knowledge of key red flag symptoms. This campaign address barriers to people coming forward with suspected signs of cancer in general and is not specific to pancreatic cancer.