Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to improve transparency on uptake, turnaround times and outcomes for genetic and biomarker testing across the NHS.

HS England is responsible for commissioning the NHS Genomic Medicine Service (GMS). Genomic testing in the National Health Service in England is provided through the NHS GMS and the genomic testing nationally commissioned and funded by NHS England for patients in England is set out in the National Genomic Test Directory.

NHS England captures Patient Level Contract Monitoring (PLCM) data across the NHS GMS to facilitate a national approach to reporting and validating activity data and turnaround times for the genomics element of the pathway. NHS England holds quarterly assurance meetings with the NHS GMS to oversee delivery and publishes PLCM data on a quarterly basis on the NHS England website, at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/genomic-testing-activity/

NHS England continues to develop this dataset, and in the future will develop the collecting and reporting of outcome data.