Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to increase (a) early diagnosis and (b) survival rates of pancreatic cancer.

In January 2019, NHS England published the NHS Long Term Plan which set the ambition to diagnose 75% of cancers at stage one and two by 2023, when it is easier to treat and increases survival outcomes.

To achieve this ambition, the Department is working with NHS England to increase early diagnosis and survival rates for those with cancer, including pancreatic cancer, and plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis, as set out in the Elective Recovery Plan published in February 2022. In addition, the Government has awarded £2.3 billion to transform diagnostic services over the next three years, most of which will help increase the number of Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs) up to 160 by March 2025, prioritising CDCs for cancer services.

The National Health Service has implemented ‘non-specific symptom pathways’ for patients who have symptoms that do not align to a particular type of tumour, including for non-specific symptoms of pancreatic cancer. There are 103 pathways currently in place with the aim to have national coverage by March 2024.

To encourage people to see their general practitioner if they notice symptoms that could be cancer, NHS England runs the ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaigns, which address the barriers that deter patients from accessing the NHS. In addition, the NHS has allocated £10 million to innovations to support earlier and more efficient diagnosis, including the PinPoint blood test and a new genetic test that can be used as a ‘liquid biopsy’ for those with suspected pancreatic cancer.