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 improve diagnosis rates for childhood cancer.

The NHS Long Term Plan commits to improve the outcomes and experience of children, teenagers and young adults with cancer through implementing networked care; simplifying pathways and transitions between service; ensuring that every patient has access to specialist care and increasing participation in clinical research.

NHS England published two new service specifications relating to the provision of children’s cancer services. The specifications include requirements to establish Children’s Cancer Operational Delivery Networks, which will enable care pathway management and the delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan ambitions for children’s cancer. The updated specifications increase support for clinical networks and include a requirement to improve the pathways to diagnosis.

The National Health Service now offers whole genome sequencing to enable more comprehensive and precise diagnosis and access to more personalised treatments for all children and young people with cancer.