Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to ensure non-stageable cancers are included in the NHS early diagnosis target.

The NHS Long Term Plan set an ambition that, by 2028, the proportion of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 will rise from around half now to three-quarters of cancer patients. Achieving this will mean that, from 2028, 55,000 more people each year will survive their cancer for at least five years after diagnosis. Due to the nature of the ambition, this only includes stageable cancers.

To find and diagnosed all cancers earlier, NHS England is streamlining cancer pathways to support diagnosis within 28 days by implementing non-symptom specific (NSS) pathways for patients who present with non-specific symptoms that can indicate several cancers, as well as implementing timed cancer pathways.

Since 2019, cancer alliances have been developing new dedicated urgent diagnostic pathways for these patients so that every cancer patient with concerning, but non-specific symptoms, gets the right tests at the right time in as few visits as possible. 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.