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 ensure NHS cancer services have supplies of the isotopes used in the detection and measurement of cancer spread, following mechanical failures at the SCK CEN nuclear plant in Belgium.

The Department has worked closely with the British Society of Nuclear Medicine and other specialist clinicians to issue guidance to the National Health Service on how to manage patient services affected by the recent shortage of Technetium-99m generators and other reactor-produced radioisotopes.

The Government recognises the importance of maintaining access to radioisotopes for medical applications. We are working closely with counterparts in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to explore the role United Kingdom’s nuclear sector could have in supporting access to the reactor-produced medical radioisotopes in the future and to support the delivery of the £6 million Medical Radionuclide Innovation Programme. This is a new scheme aiming to develop technologies which could produce the isotopes required for nuclear medicine.