Asked by: Alasdair McDonnell (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve pancreatic cancer survival rates.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Services for pancreatic cancer have been significantly strengthened within the National Health Service in recent years. This includes clearer diagnostic pathways; decision making by specialist multi-disciplinary teams; and centralisation of pancreas surgery within specialist teams.
However, we know more needs to be done. The Independent Cancer Taskforce’s report, Achieving World-Class Outcomes a Cancer Strategy for England 2015 – 2020, notes that whilst survival to date has improved significantly for some cancers, it has remained stubbornly low for other cancers, including pancreatic cancer.
The strategy makes recommendations for speeding up diagnosis of cancers with non-specific but concerning symptoms through the use of a multidisciplinary diagnostic centre. In terms of delivery, NHS England has appointed Cally Palmer as National Cancer Director. She will lead on implementation; as well as new cancer vanguards to redesign care and patient experience. She has set up a new Cancer Transformation Board to implement the strategy, and this met for the first time on Monday 25 January. There will also be a Cancer Advisory group, chaired by Sir Harpal Kumar, to oversee and scrutinise the work of the Transformation Board.
In addition, NHS England has a published a service specification for pancreatic cancer which clearly defines what it expects to be in place for providers to offer evidence-based, safe and effective pancreatic cancer services. This service specification has been developed by specialised clinicians, commissioners, expert patients and public health representatives to describe core and developmental service standards.
The full service specification can be found at:
http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/a02-cncr-panc.pdf
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published updated guideline, Suspected cancer: recognition and referral, in June 2015, to ensure that it reflects latest evidence and can continue to support general practitioner’s (GPs) to identify patients, including children & young people and urgently refer them as appropriate. NICE noted that 5,000 more lives could be saved each year in England if GPs followed the new guideline, which encourage GPs to think of cancer sooner and lower the referral threshold.
Asked by: Alasdair McDonnell (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to raise awareness of the symptoms of pancreatic cancer.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Public Health England’s Be Clear on Cancer campaigns aim to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of specific cancers, and to encourage those with symptoms to see their doctor promptly. A number of factors are taken into account when deciding which campaigns to develop and run, with one of the main criteria being the scope to save lives through earlier diagnosis and whether the cancer has a clear early sign or symptom that the general public can act upon should it arise. Pancreatic cancer is generally asymptomatic at an early stage and it is for this reason that there has not been a campaign focussing on this cancer type to date.
Public Health England is also looking to develop an approach to raise awareness of generic symptoms that can indicate a wider number of cancers and the need to visit the doctor promptly with these symptoms. This work is currently in development, with the help of a number of experts, including clinicians and charities.
Asked by: Alasdair McDonnell (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve early diagnosis rates of pancreatic cancer.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Improving early diagnosis of cancer is a priority for this Government. We have committed to implementing recommendation 24 of the Independent Cancer Taskforce’s report Achieving World-Class Outcomes and this will be underpinned by investment of up to £300 million more in diagnostics each year by 2020. The strategy also makes recommendations for speeding up diagnosis of cancers with non-specific but concerning symptoms through the use of multidisciplinary diagnostic centres. NHS England is working with partners across the health system to consider how best to take forward these and other recommendations.
Updated suspected cancer referral guidelines by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), including new guidelines for pancreatic cancer, which was published last June will continue to support general practitioners (GPs) to identify patients and urgently refer them as appropriate, where pancreatic cancer is suspected. NICE noted that more lives could be saved each year in England if GPs followed the new guideline, which encourages GPs to think of cancer sooner and lower the referral threshold.
Asked by: Alasdair McDonnell (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what funding his Department allocated for the treatment of pancreatic cancer in each of the last five years.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Data is not available at the level of detail being requested. However, information is shown in the following table on the spend on upper gastrointestinal and ‘other' cancers for the period stated.
Estimated expenditure on upper gastrointestinal cancers and ‘other' cancers, 2008-09 to 2012-13, £ billions in 2012-13 prices
2008-09 | 2009-10 | 2010-11 | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | |
Cancers and Tumours - Upper Gastrointestinal | 0.24 | 0.28 | 0.20 | 0.20 | 1.55 |
Cancers and Tumours - Other | 2.21 | 2.57 | 2.95 | 3.00 | 0.63 |
Source:
Programme budgeting data, NHS England
It should be noted that the data are not a reliable source for making year on year comparisons due to changes to the data collection methodology.
Further, not all expenditure can be allocated to a disease based category – therefore some expenditure will be allocated as ‘miscellaneous'. General practitioner expenditure is also not included within the estimates.
Asked by: Alasdair McDonnell (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what funding his Department has allocated for research into pancreatic cancer in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Department is fully committed to clinical and applied research into cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment. The Department's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including pancreatic cancer. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and the National Health Service, value for money and scientific quality.
The National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) is a United Kingdom-wide partnership between the Government, charity and industry which promotes co-operation in cancer research among the 22 member organisations. An analysis of spend data submitted by NCRI partners covering the period from 2002 to 2011 is available on the NCRI website at:
www.ncri.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/2013-NCRI-Cancer-research-spend-in-the-UK-2002-2011_data-package.xlsx
This analysis includes data for all cancer research, for site-specific research and for individual sites including pancreatic cancer. Between 2002 and 2011, the proportion of site-specific funding spent on pancreatic cancer research almost doubled.
In August 2011, the Government announced £800 million investment over five years in a series of NIHR Biomedical Research Centres and Units, including £61.5 million funding for the Royal Marsden/Institute of Cancer Research Biomedical Research Centre, and £6.5 million funding for the Liverpool Biomedical Research Unit in gastrointestinal disease (which has a major focus on pancreatic cancer). Some research they conduct is relevant to multiple cancer sites.
The UK Clinical Research Network Portfolio Database currently has 15 studies in pancreatic cancer listed.