Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 18 June 2020 to Question 56022, what plans his Department has to recover and restart recruitment to breast cancer clinical trials.

The Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is supporting the National Health Service to deliver clinical research through the Clinical Research Network (CRN).

The NIHR’s CRN reports that of the 92 breast cancer clinical trials that it was supporting on 21 May 2020, 36 or 39% were paused as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 15 April 2021, 30 or 83% of these paused breast cancer trials have restarted and 30 new breast cancer trials have entered the portfolio since 21 May 2020.

To enable clinical research studies that have been paused to restart and recruit successfully, including breast cancer trials, plans are being developed to manage the delivery of non-COVID-19 studies to ensure successful recovery of the portfolio. Details of these plans will be published shortly.