Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the latest technology is being used in radiotherapy treatments.

Since 2016, around £162 million of central investment has been made to replace or upgrade around 100 radiotherapy machines so that every radiotherapy service has access to modern equipment capable of delivering innovative treatment techniques. This investment was in addition to the investment that National Health Service trusts make to maintain their infrastructure.

NHS England is currently undertaking a stocktake of Life of Linear Accelerator (LINAC) age, which will be completed in summer 2023 and is working with partners to undertake a demand and capacity review which will complete in 2023/24. The output of this work will support local systems to plan for equipment replacement. This will also help in the continued roll out of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, a highly targeted form of radiotherapy that is now available in the NHS.