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 provide blood tests to help detect cancer.

Blood tests are used to support the diagnoses of many conditions and diseases, including cancer. For example, tests such as the Full Blood Count can be used to inform the diagnoses of blood cancers and other tests detect blood proteins that can be indicative of the body’s immune system response to the presence of cancer cells.

The science and understanding of cancer is advancing, as are the opportunities to detect cancer in patients with no symptoms using blood tests. The Grail-Galleri trial, that aims to help the National Health Service with research into early cancer detection in patients without symptoms, is an example of this advancement.