Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to address regional inequalities in the NHS clinical oncology workforce.

Compared to last year, there are 77 or 4.9% more full-time equivalent doctors working in clinical oncology in National Health Service trusts and other core organisations in England.

On 10 January 2023, Health Education England, now NHS England, announced the creation of nearly 900 additional medical specialty training posts for this year, including 270 in the cancer and diagnostics programme. Many of the additional posts are specifically targeted to tackle health inequalities and help ensure training places are distributed fairly to best meet patients’ needs in all parts of England.