Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of staff required to provide endoscopy services in 2020-25.

NHS England has the funds necessary to improve cancer services over the next five years as part of the £8 billion funding increase in real terms by 2020-21 compared to 2015-16. The recommendations in the Cancer Strategy for England report, produced in July 2015 by the independent Cancer Taskforce give direction as to where these funds should be targeted.

The forthcoming Health Education England (HEE) cancer workforce plan will set out actions as recommended in the Cancer Strategy for England, including for endoscopy up to 2020/21. The plan will also consider future challenges beyond 2020/21.

HEE is currently training an additional 200 clinical endoscopists through the accelerated training programme by 2018. Projections estimate that this will equate to a further 225,000 procedures annually by 2020. HEE is committed to maintaining the clinical endoscopy workforce beyond 2018.