Cancer

(asked on 10th November 2014) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it an objective of his Department to reduce late stage (3 and 4) cancer diagnosis and increase the proportion of cancers diagnosed at early stage (1 and 2).


Answered by
 Portrait
Jane Ellison
This question was answered on 18th November 2014

Through Improving Outcomes: A Strategy for Cancer (2011), the Government has invested an additional £750 million in improving cancer services, including over £450 million supporting earlier diagnosis. Earlier diagnosis is an essential element in delivering against the Government’s ambition to save an additional 5,000 lives from cancer per year by 2014-15.

Through the National Awareness and Early Diagnosis Initiative, the Department continues to work in partnership with Public Health England (PHE), NHS England, Cancer Research UK, Macmillan Cancer Support and other public and voluntary sector organisations to support centrally led Be Clear on Cancer symptom awareness campaigns and work to support general practitioners and primary care.

We know that diagnosis at an early stage of a cancer’s development leads to improved survival chances. An indicator on the proportion of cancers diagnosed at an early stage is therefore a useful proxy for assessing improvements in cancer survival rates. This is why the Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF) includes an indicator on the proportion of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2.

PHE has published the proportion of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 or 2 as part of PHOF. This has also been published as part of the Clinical Commissioning Group Outcome Indicator Set. PHE’s National Cancer Intelligence Network is using these staging data to examine the impact of the Be Clear on Cancer campaigns on any shift in the stage at diagnosis.

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