Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the reorganisation of NHS England into his Department on the provision of cancer screening programmes in England.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 22 May 2025 to Question 53355.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of targeted screening for chronic kidney disease high-risk populations.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) previously examined the evidence for a population screening programme for kidney disease in 2011 and recommended that a national screening programme should not be introduced. This was because, amongst other things, there was no evidence that screening would be effective at improving outcomes for those with a positive result, and programmes in other countries have not been found to be clinically or cost effective.
Following the expansion of the UK NSC’s remit in 2022 to consider targeted and risk-stratified screening alongside population screening, the committee has not received a request to examine the evidence for a targeted screening programme for chronic kidney disease in high-risk populations. The UK NSC does however run an annual call whereby members of the public and stakeholders are encouraged to submit proposals to the UK NSC to consider either new screening programmes, modifications to existing screening programmes, request for an early update or consider stopping a screening programme. More information is available on the UK NSC website at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-national-screening-committee
The NHS Health Check is a free check-up of one’s overall health for people aged between 40 and 74 years old. As part of the health check, kidney disease is one of the conditions that is looked at to inform the individual as to whether they may be at a higher risk of getting certain health problems such as:
- heart disease;
- diabetes;
- kidney disease; and
- stroke.
During the check-up, there is a discussion about how to reduce one’s risk of these conditions.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the NHS plans to take to improve (a) awareness and (b) training for (i) GPs and (ii) frontline healthcare professionals to help (A) recognise and (B) refer suspected cases of cancer in teenagers and young adults.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is committed to getting the National Health Service diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster to improve survival rates, including for children and young people. To achieve this, the NHS has delivered an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week as the first step to ensuring early diagnosis and faster treatment.
General practitioners (GPs) are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge remains up-to-date and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development.
All registered doctors in the United Kingdom are also expected to meet the professional standards set by the General Medical Council (GMC). In 2012, the GMC introduced revalidation, which supports doctors in regularly reflecting on how they can develop or improve their practice.
The training curricula for postgraduate trainee doctors is set by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and has to meet the standards set by the GMC. The RCGP provides several resources on cancer prevention, diagnosis, and care for GPs, relevant for the primary care setting.
On 4 February 2025, the Department relaunched the Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce to identify tangible ways to improve outcomes and experiences for children and young people with cancer. The taskforce is exploring opportunities for improvement across genomic testing and treatment, research and innovation, patient experience, and early detection and diagnosis.
The forthcoming National Cancer Plan will include further details on improving outcomes for cancer patients, including for children and young people with cancer, and will highlight how the Department will support the NHS to improve diagnosis rates for people in all parts of England.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 10 June 2025 to Question 57594 on Urinary Tract Infections: Vaccination, whether the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (a) is reviewing and (b) plans to review available vaccines for Urinary Tract Infection for use in the UK.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has identified vaccines to prevent recurrent urinary tract infections (UTI). These are currently in development.
During a sub-committee meeting of the JCVI held on 25 November 2024, the pipeline vaccine against recurrent UTIs, known as uromune-MV140, was presented by its manufacturer, Inmunotek. Therapeutic vaccines are considered by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The committee awaits advice on whether the NICE will review this product. The minutes of the JCVI’s subcommittee meeting have been published on the JCVI website, at the following link:
https://app.box.com/s/wv2uxkv7v9bisuf8ml8mdb19iemnzmv8/file/1808036070368
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the APPG for Less Survivable Cancer's report entitled Inquiry into earlier detection and faster diagnosis published in June 2025, what steps he is taking to ensure GPs identify less survivable cancers.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer, including rare and less common cancers, earlier, in order to improve outcomes, including survival rates.
We are streamlining referral routes and increasing the availability of diagnostic capacity through the roll-out of more community diagnostic centres. Additionally, we are streamlining referral routes through the implementation of a non-specific symptom pathway, for patients who present with vague and non-site-specific symptoms which do not clearly align to a tumour type.
We are also investing an additional £889 million in general practices (GPs) to reinforce the front door of the NHS, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.2 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade.
The National Cancer Plan, which will complement the 10-Year Health Plan and support delivery of the Government’s Health Mission, will set out further actions to improve early diagnosis, including GP referral for suspected cancer. The plan will also consider how we can better identify and monitor people at increased risk of developing cancer.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 25 March 2025 to Question 38918 on Cancer: Young People, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of collating England-wide data on the participation of young adults in cancer clinical trials led by the National Institute of Health Research and funded by his Department.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) does collect data on participation in clinical trials through NIHR funded research infrastructure, including the participation of young adults. The Department reports on this data where it is appropriate to do so.
This data provides insights into the volume and demographics of participants, the types of studies being conducted, and the levels of engagement across different regions and specialties. This includes information gathered via the Research Delivery Network, Biomedical Research Centres, and other NIHR-supported facilities.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of an (a) centralised and (b) nationwide case-finding programme to identify people at high risk of (i) developing and (ii) inheriting less survivable cancers.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) has committed to developing a National Inherited Cancer Predisposition Register (NICPR) as part of its 2024 to 2027 strategy, building on the work to establish the National Lynch Registry. The NICPR will launch on 30 June, and will look at a wider range of cancers for which there is an increased inherited risk, including for less survivable cancers. It will identify high-risk individuals who are eligible for targeted screening and surveillance, and will act as an electronic referral route into national screening programmes where these exist, for instance Lynch syndrome and bowel screening.
The NICPR is also a key commitment in the Rare Disease Action Plan for England, with NDRS in NHS England as the lead delivery partner, further highlighting its relevance to improving care for people with rare inherited cancer risk.
NHS England is also working on case-finding approaches for less survivable cancers, where the evidence suggests this is appropriate. It is currently developing a public-facing Family History Checker, which enables people and their families affected by pancreatic cancer to self-assess if they may inherit risk. Individuals identified as being at risk are referred directly to the European Registry of Hereditary Pancreatic Diseases research trial, which aims to understand inherited conditions of the pancreas. Referrals to the trial can be made by any healthcare professional across all health sectors or by individuals via self-referral, contributing to a centralised approach to case-finding.
As part of our National Cancer Plan, we have been working with members of the Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce, a group of charities focusing on cancers with poor survival rates, to identify how we can improve diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for less survivable cancers.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of implementing awareness campaigns on the (a) signs and (b) symptoms of cancer in (i) teenagers and (ii) young adults.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England and other National Health Service organisations, nationally and locally, publish information on the signs and symptoms of many different types of cancer, including those that are most common in teenagers and young adults. Further information on cancer signs and symptoms is available at the following link:
NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address the barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms as well as encouraging body awareness to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point.
On 4 February 2025, the Department relaunched the Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce to identify tangible ways to improve outcomes and experiences for young cancer patients. The work of the taskforce is ongoing, and officials are exploring opportunities for improvement across a range of areas, including detection and diagnosis, genomic testing and treatment, research and innovation, and patient experience. The taskforce will also ensure that the unique needs of children and young people, including teenagers and young adults with cancer, are carefully considered as part of the National Cancer Plan.
For these reasons, the Department has not made a formal specific assessment of the potential merits of implementing awareness campaigns on the signs and symptoms of cancer in teenagers and young adults.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 25 March 2025 to Question 38918 on Cancer: Young People, what steps (a) his Department and (b) the National Institute for Health and Care Research has taken to (i) enrol 50 per cent of young people with cancer into clinical trials by March 2025 and (ii) publish data on this target.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
To support the delivery of this ambition, the Department, through NHS England, has put in place new national service specifications, covering both Principal Treatment Centre and associated Teenage and Young Adult (TYA) Designated Hospital provision, and has established networks to oversee pathways of care, coordinate clinical trial access, and develop local strategies to increase clinical trial recruitment. Alongside this, NHS England has also introduced a metric to monitor trial participation within the TYA Cancer Quality Dashboard.
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, including clinical research for teenagers and young adults with cancer.
The Department does not hold data on the overall percentage of children and young people with cancer that are enrolled into clinical trials nationwide, but does collect data on general participation through NIHR funded research infrastructure. The Department reports on this data where it is appropriate to do so.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the membership is of the Patient Voice Panel as a part of the Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce; and what meetings it has held in the last 12 months.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to including the voices of young cancer patients in the work of the taskforce and the National Cancer Plan. That’s why the Department has worked with taskforce members to assemble a Patient Experience Panel of people with lived experience of cancer. The panel is made up of a diverse group, including parents of children with cancer, young adults who were diagnosed with cancer as teenagers, and those who were diagnosed as children.
The panel has met three times so far, and will continue to feed directly into the work of the taskforce.