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 improve research capacity for cancer in the (a) Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and West Berkshire integrated care board and b) NHS in England.

Through the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR), the Department invests in building research expertise and capacity, and specialist facilities and support services, to support research across all aspects of human health, including cancer.

Since 2006, the NIHR has supported 189 personal career development awards for researchers working on cancer, as well as 526 awards through the NIHR Integrated Academic Training Programme for doctors and dentists, which combines research training with clinical training. The NIHR also supports the Cancer Research Transatlantic Development and Skills Award and co-funds fellowships with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, focussed on research into brain cancer.

The Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMCs), co-funded by the NIHR and Cancer Research UK, act as a United Kingdom-wide network, bringing together world-leading laboratory and clinical researchers to test new treatments for adults and children with cancer. Other infrastructure supporting cancer research includes the NIHR Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) and Clinical Research Facilities (CRFs), many of which have specialist expertise in cancer.

The Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and West Berkshire Integrated Care Board benefits from infrastructure supporting cancer research, including the Oxford and Southampton ECMCs, BRCs and CRFs, and the South Central Regional Research Delivery Network.