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, if she will make it her policy to develop a specific strategy on (a) research, (b) early diagnosis and (c) treatment for less survivable cancers.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We currently do not have such plans. Making improvements across different cancer types is critical to helping achieve the NHS Long Term Plan ambition of diagnosing 75% of patients at an early stage by 2028 and reducing inequalities in cancer survival. Through NHS England, the Government is taking steps to improve outcomes for cancer patients, including those with less survivable cancers.
The planned Major Conditions Strategy will look at the early diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The Strategy will look at a wide range of interventions and enablers to improve outcomes and experience for a range of cancer patients.
NHS England has commissioned new cancer clinical audits covering five cancer types, some of which are less survivable: pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, kidney cancer and primary and metastatic breast cancer. All five audits will cover care delivered in England and Wales and will see an investment of approximately £5.4 million for an initial period of three years.
The NHS ‘Help Us, Help You’ (HUHY) cancer campaigns increase awareness of cancer symptoms and encourage people to get checked. Some campaigns focus on specific symptoms linked to less survivable cancers, such as the HUHY abdominal and urological symptoms campaign, while others focus on fear as a barrier to help-seeking, which is relevant to all cancer types.
Jan. 10 2024
Source Page: Authorised Aquaculture Production Businesses and Authorised Processing Establishments: registersFound: Infectious pancreatic necrosis="5." & G$1& ".5."Infectious pancreatic necrosis="5." & J$1& ".5."
Jan. 10 2024
Source Page: Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus - quality prescribing strategy: improvement guide 2024 to 2027Found: Pioglitazone • Risk of fluid retention and congestive heart failure • Risk of bone fractures and bladder cancer
Oral Evidence Jan. 09 2024
Inquiry: Future cancerFound: We will focus on pancreatic cancer, brain cancer and respiratory cancers, including lung cancer and
Asked by: Baillie, Jackie (Scottish Labour - Dumbarton)
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that women in the west of Scotland have experienced considerable delays in accessing ovarian cancer surgery.
Answered by Minto, Jenni - Minister for Public Health and Women's Health
The Scottish Government is aware of instances of women who have faced significant delays in accessing ovarian cancer surgery in the west of Scotland. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of the surgery for ovarian cancer, scheduling can be challenging for health boards. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) has advised that action is being taken to simplify scheduling of these cases and thus reduce delays.
Actions taken have included increasing dedicated theatre capacity and improving joint working across surgical teams. The health board is working to increase dedicated time for surgeons from the colorectal, urology, plastic and hepato-pancreatic biliary teams to operate jointly with gynaecology oncology. The surgical team is now bigger, with further training in hand. There has been an increase in weekly operating lists and planning continues to improve around increased access to other surgical specialties.
The Centre for Sustainable Delivery is leading improvement work and pathway redesign via their clinically led specialty delivery group (SDG) for gynaecology. This includes in-depth peer review meetings involving all Boards in NHS Scotland to ensure gynaecology patients are on the right pathway at the right time, supporting improvements in waiting times and patient outcomes.
The Scottish Cancer Network will be establishing a new National Ovarian Cancer Clinical Network, which will work to ensure equity of access to treatment for all women with ovarian cancer in Scotland.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
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 help improve the diagnosis (a) rates and (b) treatments for ovarian cancer in (i) England and (ii) Romford constituency.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Improving the diagnosis rate and treatment for all cancers including for ovarian cancer, is a priority for this Government. The Department is working with NHS England and is taking steps across England to increase diagnosis rates, including setting stretching ambitions, supporting general practitioners (GPs) in referring patients, expanding diagnostic capacity and enabling more precise diagnosis through technology. These steps and actions apply in Romford as across England.
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. NHS England is currently running a ‘Help us Help you’ campaign highlighting the abdominal and urological symptoms of cancer, including ovarian cancer, and addressing the barriers that stop people from accessing services in the NHS.
NHS England introduced the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS) which aims to ensure patients have cancer diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days of urgent referral from a GP or screening services with a 75% standard ambition. To achieve the FDS, NHS England has implemented ‘non-specific symptom pathways’ for patients who have symptoms that do not align to a particular type of tumour, including for non-specific symptoms of pancreatic cancer.
Further to this, the Department has committed to £2.3 billion of capital funding to expanding diagnostic capacity across the NHS by rolling out more community diagnostic centres, delivering vital tests, scans and checks, including for ovarian cancer.
The Department invests in health research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). NIHR has funded six research projects into screening for ovarian cancer since 2018, with a combined total funding value of £3.8 million, including looking at the impact and effectiveness of different kinds of testing and screening and effectiveness of treatment options. The overall goal is to improve diagnosis and treatment to improve patient outcomes.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
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 with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle inequalities in prostate cancer outcomes.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is not currently taking specific steps with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle inequalities in prostate cancer outcomes, but is tackling inequalities for all cancer outcomes. Experience and access is a key focus for everyone as part of the NHS Long Term Plan. The NHS Long Term Plan states that ‘where appropriate every person diagnosed with cancer will have access to personalised care, including needs assessment, a care plan and health and wellbeing information and support’.
A pancreatic cancer clinical audit, led by the Royal College of Surgeons, began in 2021, with the first outcomes expected in 2024. A key aim of the audit is to support National Health Service services to stimulate improvements in cancer detection, treatment and outcomes for patients, including improving survival rates.
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, what steps she is taking to improve survival rates for people with pancreatic cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is already delivering a range of interventions that are expected to increase early diagnosis and improve outcomes for those with pancreatic cancer, therefore no additional steps are being taken by the Department. NHS England’s work 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. This creates 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 practitioner direct access to diagnostic tests. NHS England have formed an expert group to consider a pathway for Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary cancers, including pancreatic cancer.
NHS England is also funding a new audit into pancreatic cancer 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. In addition to this, the Getting it Right First-Time team in NHS England is undertaking a deep dive into pancreatic cancer, which will highlight actions NHS providers need to take to improve services, as well as gathering examples of good practice to share.
Found: Therapists Michael Clanc y, Law Society of Scotland Sharon Cowell -Smith, NHS Lothian Dawn Crosby , Pancreatic
Oral Evidence Dec. 13 2023
Committee: Health and Social Care Committee (Department: Department of Health and Social Care)Found: There is, for example, a very big overlap between cancer and mental health, between cancer and cardiac