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 monitor trends in the level of (a) breast cancer caused by shift work and (b) ovarian cancer caused by asbestos.

No assessment has been made of these trends. While NHS Digital collects data on the prevalence of breast and ovarian cancer, it is not possible to determine whether these cancers are caused by shift work and asbestos. Hospital episode statistics do not record patients’ career or workplace and the codes used to identify groups of chemicals or noxious substances as the cause of a specific condition do not separately identify asbestos.