Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to improve diagnosis rates for breast cancer.

The NHS Long Term Plan set an ambition for 75% of cancers to be diagnosed at stage one or two by 2028, which has now been achieved for breast cancer. The NHS Breast Screening Programme offers all women in England aged 50 years old to their 71st birthday the opportunity to be screened every three years for breast cancer. The Programme issues invitations to 1.9 million women every year, which detects 20,000 breast cancers and prevents approximately 1,300 deaths.

NHS England’s National Cancer Programme is working with clinical experts, patients and charities to produce a best practice timed pathway for breast cancer. These pathways set out the sequence and maximum timeframes in which triage, diagnostic tests and assessments should be delivered, to support delivery of the 28 day Faster Diagnosis Standard.

A recent ‘Help us help you’ campaign focused on the barriers to earlier presentation in all cancer types, including breast cancer and aimed to address underlying challenges to earlier diagnosis. This campaign saw a 1600% increase in the numbers of visits to the NHS.UK cancer symptoms information.