Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help improve access to early prostate cancer (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment in deprived communities.

The Government understands that more needs to be done to improve outcomes for all people with prostate cancer. To achieve this, we have delivered an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week during our first year in Government, as the first step to ensuring early diagnosis and faster treatment.

To address disparities and find ways to better detect prostate cancer earlier, we have invested £16 million in the United Kingdom-wide TRANSFORM trial, aimed at helping find the best ways of detecting prostate cancer in men, even if they are not displaying any symptoms. This research will aim to address some of the inequalities that exist in prostate cancer diagnosis by targeting black men in trial recruitment, ensuring that one in ten participants are black men. We have also asked the National Screening Committee to review the evidence for prostate cancer screening, including for high-risk groups.

The NHS England Cancer Programme also commissions clinical cancer audits, which 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, including those with prostate cancer.