Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to support research into (a) causes and (b) treatment of bowel cancer.

Government responsibility for delivering cancer research is shared between the Department of Health and Social Care, with research delivered by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation, which includes the Medical Research Council (MRC).

The MRC generally focusses on early biomedical research, including cellular and animal models, while the NIHR funds translational and applied research, where treatments and interventions are tested in real world populations and health and care settings.

The Department of Health and Social Care recognises the crucial need for research into all forms of cancer, including bowel cancer. We are supporting research into bowel cancer across a range of areas.

This includes, for example, over £2.2 million of NIHR investment in the CONSCOP2 study, a randomised controlled trial designed to investigate a new approach to screening for right sided bowel cancer.

As well as funding research itself, the Department of Health and Social Care invests significantly in centres of excellence and collaborations, services, and facilities to support health and care research. Collectively these form the NIHR infrastructure. The NIHR infrastructure works with patients, clinicians, academics, and health services to support research into the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of bowel cancer. This includes the development of novel diagnostics, biomarkers, and therapeutic approaches as well as ensuring that effective bowel cancer innovations, once proven, are implemented nationally.

The NIHR continues to welcome high quality applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including bowel cancer. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to the public and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality.

In addition, the National Cancer Plan has patients at its heart and covers the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and diagnosis to treatment and ongoing care, as well as prevention, and research and innovation. It seeks to improve every aspect of cancer care to better the experience and outcomes for people with cancer. This plan prepares the National Health Service to seize scientific breakthroughs, so patients benefit from the full power of modern innovation, by trialing new technologies such as the COLOFIT algorithm for bowel cancer.