Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect on trends in the number of cancer diagnoses in the next 12 months of suspending NHS cancer screening programmes.

The UK National Screening Committee is undertaking work to estimate the impact of temporary suspension to screening programmes, including cancer screening. This work is currently in its early stages and the results will be reported as soon they are available.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have not suspended National Health Service cancer screening programmes at the national level. However, to protect patients and staff during this pandemic, it is acknowledged that at a regional level some clinical services are rescheduling routine invitations or appointments to a later date, including routine screening appointments. NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with service providers to ensure that plans are in place to reschedule and restore services as soon as is safely possible to do so, in order to minimise any risk to individual patients.

NHS England and NHS Improvement recommend that anyone experiencing any unusual symptoms should contact their general practitioner practice as soon as possible for advice.