Cancer: County Durham

(asked on 17th July 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to NHS England's Commissioner-based Cancer Waiting Times for May 2019 (Provisional), published on 11 July 2019, for what reason the NHS Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield Clinical Commissioning Group is not meeting the target for patients to receive their first cancer treatment within 62 days of an urgent GP referral.


Answered by
Seema Kennedy Portrait
Seema Kennedy
This question was answered on 22nd July 2019

Cancer is a priority for this Government and impetus has been given to ensuring that more patients are seen and treated for cancer. The drive to improve survival rates through earlier diagnosis, therefore, has meant that demand and activity have been rising for a number of years. This has resulted in more people being referred and diagnosed than ever before.

Improving diagnosis and ensuring better outcomes for patients diagnosed with cancer is a priority for Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), and County Durham is consistently better in terms of coverage than the national average for all three cancer screening programmes. The CCG is working collaboratively with colleagues from public health, primary care and secondary care on a strategic piece of work, with a view that a multi-disciplinary approach is necessary in order to address inequalities in cancer.

The CCG has developed the Action Plan ‘County Durham Reducing Health Inequalities in Cancer Action Plan for 2018-19’.

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