Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how long data is retained by the NHS on people being given the all clear for breast cancer; and whether their is a maximum time limit for someone to receive a diagnosis of secondary cancer when cancer is diagnosed at a future point.

The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) in NHS England, as the national cancer registry, collects diagnosis and treatment data on cancer patients in England. NDRS data sets do not include an “all clear” date or a proxy for this date.

To aid research and support future improvements in patient care, the data collected by the national cancer registry may be stored indefinitely. If a patient requires further treatment for cancer, the data collection will resume, and Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset contains the requirement for hospitals to state if this episode of disease is for a new or existing diagnosis.