Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
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 potential implications for NHS (a) testing and (b) screening protocols of the potential link between (i) iron anaemia and (ii) colorectal cancer.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made on the link between iron anaemia and colorectal cancer for national screening purposes. Colorectal cancer is more common in people over the age of 50, but it can affect people of any age. To identify patients who have symptoms that do not align to a particular type of tumour, including for non-specific symptoms of colorectal cancer, the National Health Service has implemented ‘non-specific symptom pathways’. There are 103 pathways currently in place with the aim to have national coverage by March 2024.
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 NHS.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what are the age limits on each of the NHS screening programmes and the justification for each limit.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
All National screening programmes are introduced based on recommendations made by the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC). The UK NSC assesses and evaluates the evidence to offer screening when it will offer more good than harm. Screening age ranges are selected based on the range where the evidence supports that balance.
The National Health Service breast screening programme invites eligible women to be screened every three years from the age of 50 up to their 71st birthday.
The NHS bowel screening programme invited men and women every two years from ages 60 to 74 years old. The programme is expanding to make it available to everyone aged 50 to 59 years old. This is happening gradually over four years and started in April 2021.
The NHS cervical screening programme invites people with a cervix between the ages of 25 and 49 for screening every three years, whilst people aged 50 to 64 receive an invitation every five years.
The NHS abdominal aortic aneurysm screening programme offers men a screening the year they turn 65.
The NHS diabetic eye screening programme is offered to anyone with diabetes who is 12 years old or over. Those eligible are invited for an annual screening.
The NHS targeted lung cancer screening programme that has been recently announced will invite people aged 55 to 74 identified as being at high risk of lung cancer for screening.
For antenatal screening programmes, pregnant women are invited early for screening once the pregnancy has been confirmed. This includes the NHS foetal anomaly screening programme and NHS infectious diseases in pregnancy.
Screening for newborns is also offered early at a time when conditions can be detected and where early treatment can improve the baby’s health and prevent severe disability or even death. Newborn screening programmes include the NHS newborn blood spot screening programme, the NHS newborn hearing screening programme, the NHS newborn and infant physical examination screening programme and the NHS sickle cell and thalassaemia screening programme.
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, what steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting times for (a) endoscopies and (b) other bowel cancer diagnostic tests.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
£2.3 billion was awarded at Spending Review 21 to transform diagnostic services over the next three years. Most of this will help increase the number of Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs) up to 160 by March 2025, expanding and protecting elective planned diagnostic services, including a number delivering endoscopy services. The remainder will increase diagnostic capacity, including endoscopy services, and other productivity improvements including digital transformation.
Direct Spending Review 21 investment in Endoscopy capacity has resulted in a net additional 31 endoscopy rooms in 2022/23, of which five were in CDCs. To date, NHS England have also approved additional investment, expected to deliver a further 25 net endoscopy rooms, of which five are to be in CDCs.
Alongside investment in physical capacity, several schemes are already underway to grow the endoscopy workforce including international recruitment of Clinical Fellows to enable back-fill for gastroenterology trainees to complete training.
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.