Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will increase funding for (a) health prevention and (b) screening programmes.

By the end of the Parliament, core Departmental spending will have increased from £140.5 billion in 2019/20 to £193.1 billion in 2024-25, representing a cash increase of £52.6 billion. That is a 37% cash increase in the Department’s total budget between 2019/20 and 2024/25. This means total health and social care spending will continue to grow in real terms between 2019/20 and 2024/25 by 3.4%, which represents the compound annual growth rate in 2022/23 prices.

The Public Health Grant will increase over the current spending review period, rising to £3.6 billion in 2024/25. Taking the Public Health Grant together with additional grants for drug treatment and start for life services, the funding that the Department provides to local authorities for public health will grow by more than 5% in real terms over the two years 2023/24 and 2024/25. Moreover, from 2024/25 we are investing an additional £70 million per year to support local authority-led stop smoking services, more than doubling current spend on these services, in support of our commitment to deliver a smoke-free generation.

Funding for prevention services and for screening programmes is also included in the overall 2023/24 National Health Service budget of £172 billion. Furthermore, in July 2023, the Government invested in the launch of a new targeted lung cancer screening programme, which when fully rolled out will detect approximately 9000 cancers earlier each year.