Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on introducing DNA tests for the detection of cancers.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are exploring a number of promising genetic tests which may support early detection of cancer and continue to monitor the evolution and development of new technologies. NHS England and NHS Improvement have agreed a partnership with GRAIL to test and accelerate its Galleri test into widespread usage across the NHS. The trial is currently in its first stage. If the initial phase of this trial meets specific interim goals identified in advance, the NHS will expand the trial to one million tests in 2024 and 2025. The NHS Cancer Programme’s innovation open call is supporting a small-scale project using the Guardant liquid biopsy to support diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.