Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the recommendations of All.Can UK's report of December 2020 entitled, Placing the psychological wellbeing of people with cancer on equal footing to physical health, if his Department will take steps to (a) raise awareness within the oncology workforce of the psycho-social support services that the third sector offers for cancer patients and (b) ensure that patients are signposted to those services.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have established a task and finish group to look at psychosocial support for people affected by cancer. Part of this work will involve examining signposting to psychosocial support from any provider including the third sector.

The revised Cancer Care Review requirements for general practitioner practices mean patients’ psychosocial support needs will be addressed twice in their first year after diagnosis. Patients should be signposted via Primary Care Network link workers to non-cancer specific support such as local authority health and wellbeing activities.