Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to help increase awareness of the main symptoms of ovarian cancer.

Improving early diagnosis of cancer, including ovarian cancer, remains a priority. We are working towards the NHS Long Term Plan ambition of diagnosing 75% of stageable cancers at stage 1 and 2 by 2028. The latest published data shows this was 52% between January to December 2020. Achieving this will mean that, from 2028, 55,000 more people each year will survive their cancer for at least five years after diagnosis. The National Health Service is improving pathways to get people diagnosed faster once they are referred and is looking into alternative routes into the system, including non-specific symptom (NSS) pathways for patients who do not fit clearly into a single ‘urgent cancer’ referral pathway but who are at risk of being diagnosed with cancer. This will help support faster ovarian cancer diagnosis. 108 NSS pathways are currently operational, with more in development. By March 2024, the NSS programme will achieve full population coverage across England for non-specific symptom pathways as set out in the 2023/24 NHS Planning Guidance.

Reducing variation in cancer services is a strategic priority for the NHS Cancer Programme. The NHS Cancer Programme has commissioned five new cancer clinical audits, which will provide timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, increase the consistency of access to treatments and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. The Royal College of Surgeons began work on this audit in October last year with the first outcomes expected in 2023/24. This includes an audit on ovarian cancer.

To encourage people to get in touch with their general practitioner if they notice or are worried about symptoms that could be cancer, NHS England is running the ‘Help Us, Help You’ (HUHY) campaigns. This included multiple phases of the campaign that had a focus on abdominal symptoms which, among other abdominal cancers, can be indicative of ovarian cancer, most recently in November and December 2022. Alongside that phase of the campaign, NHS England funded a series of community engagement events coordinated by a cluster of gynaecological cancer charities, led by Target Ovarian Cancer.

The NHS plans to run further HUHY campaign activity through 2023/24.