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 promote routine access to personalised cancer treatments that target specific gene mutations.

NHS England and NHS Improvement work with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to ensure access to personalised cancer treatments that target specific gene mutations.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are involved in the NICE Topic Selection process to identify treatments which may proceed through the NICE technology appraisal process and include a genomic test as part of the patient pathway. Following NICE recommendation of a treatment that targets specific gene mutations, NHS England and NHS Improvement develop and follow a detailed implementation plan to ensure that genomic testing is available within the appropriate time scale.