Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the number of NHS professionals working in (a) endoscopy and (b) on screening for bowel cancer for men and women between the age of 50 and 74.

Health Education England (HEE) developed the Cancer Workforce Plan in partnership with NHS England and its Five Year Forward partners. It sets out a delivery plan that ensures the National Health Service in England has the right numbers of skilled staff to provide high quality care and services to cancer patients at each stage in their care – from accurate early diagnosis and treatment to living with and beyond cancer and end of life care. The recommendations from this plan propose an increase in a number of occupations and roles relevant to endoscopy and the range of professionals who will need to work together to ensure successful screening for bowel cancer. The plan highlights the following immediate actions to make better use of existing supply, including:

- HEE was already planning to invest in an additional 746 consultants working in cancer by 2021. We have identified system wide actions such as improved retention to secure a further 535, producing a total of 1,281 full time equivalent (FTE) more consultants working in cancer by 2021 (an estimated 21% increase from 2016), including 316 more gastroenterologists, 243 FTE more oncologists and 94 FTE additional histopathologists;

- HEE will invest in 200 additional clinical endoscopists to support an increase in capacity for earlier diagnosis by 2021 (in addition to the 200 currently committed, a 100% increase); and

- HEE will also establish a working group with the Royal College of Pathologists to explore ways of expanding reporting pathologists to increase diagnostic and dissecting capacity.