Ovarian Cancer

(asked on 27th February 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when NHS England plans to publish its service specification on ovarian cancer.


Answered by
 Portrait
David Mowat
This question was answered on 2nd March 2017

In order for NHS England to formally consider a new or revised service specification, a number of associated reports and processes need to be completed. The Complex Gynaecological Services Clinical Reference Group (CRG) did start the process of developing a new service specification for ovarian cancer, however, this did not progress through the process. This was due to technical difficulties encountered during the Impact Assessment stage and included issues in identifying activity and the associated financial impact.

In the subsequent period, CRGs have been restructured and the responsibility for this clinical area now resides with the Specialised Cancer Surgery CRG, within the National Cancer Programme of Care. In addition, NHS England has also published a revised process for service specification development (titled: ‘Methods’), which can be found at:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/key-docs/

The Methods sets out the process for completing service specification work and, in accordance with this process, the Specialised Cancer Surgery CRG has been asked to consider progressing this work. The CRG Chair is due to discuss the matter with a representative of the Gynaecology CRG later this week and, following this, it is expected that the first step of the process will be completed by the middle of March 2017.

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