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 obtain additional resources to build capacity so that the NHS can tackle the cancer backlog.

At the Spending Review we announced an extra £5.9 billion of capital to support elective recovery, diagnostics, and technology over the next three years. This includes £2.3 billion to increase the volume of diagnostic activity and to roll out Community Diagnostic Centres to help clear backlogs of people waiting for clinical tests, such as magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasounds and computerised tomography scans.

We announced a £1 billion Elective Recovery Fund at Spending Review 2020 to support elective and cancer recovery. As part of this, a £20 million investment was made available to Cancer Alliances to help speed up cancer diagnosis and help manage the high volume of referrals.

The Spending Review in 2020 provided £260 million to increase the National Health Service workforce and support commitments made in the NHS Long Term Plan. This included £52 million in 2021/22 for Health Education England to further invest in the cancer and diagnostics workforce, including expanding training in key medical professions, offering training grants for 250 nurses wishing to become cancer clinical nurse specialists and for an additional 100 nurses wishing to become chemotherapy nurses.