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 his Department is taking to help tackle inequalities in cancer outcomes between integrated care board areas.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Reducing variation in cancer treatment is a strategic priority for the NHS Cancer Programme. There are four long-running audits on lung, oesophago-gastric, bowel and prostate cancer and the NHS Cancer Programme has commissioned five new cancer clinical audits, covering ovarian, pancreatic, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, kidney, and primary and metastatic breast cancers. These will provide timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, increase the consistency of access to treatments and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. The Royal College of Surgeons began work on this audit in October last year with the first outcomes expected in 2024.
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 he will take steps to roll out colon capsule endoscopies across the NHS.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Colon Capsule Endoscopy (CCE) is currently being offered to low to intermediate risk patients on a lower gastrointestinal urgent cancer pathway and post-polypectomy surveillance patients in 52 sites across England as part of a national pilot.
So far, 6,000 CCE’s have been carried out and 70% of patients who have had this procedure have been spared a colonoscopy. An evaluation is running alongside the pilot to assess outcomes, diagnostic accuracy and patient experience. The evaluation will conclude in March 2024 and the resultant paper will inform long-term commissioning in local systems.
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 assessment he has made of the adequacy of access by disabled people to cancer screening; and what information his Department holds on such access.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is committed to improving the accessibility of the breast, bowel and cervical cancer screening programmes. Providers of NHS screening services are required to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that their services are accessible to disabled people.
The Department and NHS England are working to set out actions to improve accessibility to and uptake of screening including ensuring that Primary Care Networks are provided with primary care data analytics for population segmentation and risk stratification to allow them to understand in depth their populations’ health and care needs for screening programmes. NHS England is supporting a range of research and evaluation to assess the feasibility and acceptability of self-sampling within the NHS Cervical Screening Programme to support an improvement in the accessibility of cervical screening.
The breast screening service offers longer appointments at accessible sites to support women with physical disabilities to have a successful screen. Services make reasonable adjustments, within the constraints of equipment, to ensure that disabled people are offered the opportunity to have breast screening.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies regional variations in the uptake of the bowel cancer screening programme.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The national service specifications aim to ensure local providers support their community to take part in the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme and are monitored by local commissioners. Providers must have systems in place to address inequalities and ensure equity of access for people with protected characteristics if they have a registered general practitioner and identifies and supports people who are considered under-served to access screening.
Regionally and nationally several initiatives have been implemented, from targeting bowel cancer screening awareness campaigns on communities with lower uptake to ensuring information is available in easy read formats, British Sign Language and other languages.
Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to reduce the FIT screening for bowel cancer threshold from 120 ug/g to 20ug/g.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department and NHS England are working together to look at reducing the FIT screening threshold for Bowel cancer, including calculating the workforce capacity that would be needed.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of variations in the uptake of the bowel cancer screening programme in (a) Enfield North constituency and (b) the London Borough of Enfield.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Using the National Health Service ‘Help Us Help You’ campaign local materials have been developed to support outreach with groups in Enfield who experience inequalities around cancer, with a focus on bowel cancer screening.
Online events have been organised, such as webinars and presentations, including to Enfield Borough Partnership Black Health Forum. Enfield’s Learning Disabilities team have also supported outreach with service user groups to inform and participate in the co-production and distribution of easy read resources.
Asked by: John Baron (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase the early diagnosis of cancer.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The earlier we diagnose cancer, the better the outcomes for patients.
That’s why we’re speeding up diagnosis of the most common cancers e.g., skin cancer with tele-dermatology, bowel cancer through Faecal Immunochemical Testing, and prostate cancer through multiparametric MRI; increasing targeted screening for breast cancer and lung cancer; investing in 160 new community diagnostic centres; and tackling variation in cancer waiting times around the country.
Thanks to the hard work of so many people in cancer services around the country, the NHS hit the ‘faster diagnosis standard’ for the first time in February.
And – looking ahead - we’re investing in innovations like the Galleri blood test which may be able to detect cancer before people even have symptoms.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will ensure that the Major Conditions Strategy includes measures in line with the NHS Long Term Plan to increase the number and proportion of bowel cancer patients diagnosed at stage I or stage II by 2028.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Major Conditions Strategy will look at the treatment and prevention of cancer in people of all ages, covering the patient pathway. The strategy will look at a wide range of interventions and enablers to improve outcomes and experience for cancer patients.
This Strategy will draw on previous work on cancer, including over 5,000 submissions provided to the Department as part of our Call for Evidence last year. The summary of responses to the Call for Evidence was published on 17 May 2023. We will continue to work closely with stakeholders, citizens, and the NHS in coming weeks to identify actions for the Strategy that will have the most impact.
Asked by: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to improve outcomes for bowel cancer patients.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England have been working with Cancer Alliances to facilitate the prioritisation and implementation of treatment-focussed recommendations from clinical audits and Getting It Right First Time reports that will make the biggest impact in terms of improving survival outcomes and reducing inequalities. This work was piloted in 2022/23 in lung cancer, and in 2023/24 this work is now expanding to cover three new tumour sites where there is an existing clinical audit: prostate, breast, and bowel.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that 75 per cent of bowel cancer patients are diagnosed at stage I or II by 2028.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Achieving earlier and faster diagnosis of cancer is a priority for the National Health Service. That is why one of the core ambitions in the NHS Long Term Plan is to diagnose 75% of cancers at stage 1 or 2 by 2028. The latest published data shows this was at 52% between January 2020 to December 2020.
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. 103 NSS pathways are currently operational, with more in development.
The NHS bowel cancer screening programme is currently available to everyone aged 60 to 74 years old every two years. Since April 2021, the NHS in England has been gradually reducing the age for bowel screening. The age extension programme began in 2021/22, inviting people aged 56 years old and plans to complete rollout to age 50 years old by 2024/25. This extension was recommended to improve the number of cancers detected and helping to prevent it in some cases.