Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to make an assessment of the adequacy of (a) funding for and (b) research into breast cancer treatment.

The Department does not currently plan to make specific assessments as work is already underway. The Government is supporting the National Health Service with record funding, including investing an additional £3.3 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25 to enable rapid action to improve emergency, elective and primary care performance towards pre-pandemic levels, bringing the NHS resource budget to £165.9 billion in 2024/25.

Under the Targeted Investment Fund, NHS England is investing in over 870 schemes across more than 180 hospital trusts to increase capacity through expanding wards, installing modular operating theatres, upgrading outpatient spaces, expanding mobile diagnostics for cancer and upgrading MRI and screening technology

Regarding research, the Department invests in health research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including research into breast cancer. NIHR research expenditure for all cancers was over £101 million for 2021/22.

NIHR also supports research into breast cancer treatment via its infrastructure. This includes funding for the NIHR Biomedical Research Centres, NIHR Clinical Research Facilities, NIHR Clinical Research Network and Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres.