Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of implementing a 21-day treatment standard for pancreatic cancer.

No assessment has been made.

NHS England announced in August 2023 that cancer standards would be changed, in line with the recommendations of clinicians within the ‘Clinically-led review of NHS cancer standards’, which was published in March 2022.

The review is available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinically-led-review-of-nhs-cancer-standards-models-of-care-and-measurement/

This will see the current ten cancer standards reduced to three - the Faster Diagnosis Standard, the 31-day treatment standard, and the 62-day diagnosis and treatment standard.