Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to improve access to new treatments for patients with secondary breast cancer.

The Department is committed to ensuring that the National Health Service diagnoses cancer earlier and treats it faster so that more patients, including those with breast cancer, survive.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations for the NHS on whether new licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the NHS based on their costs and benefits. Cancer medicines are eligible for funding from the Cancer Drugs Fund from the point of a positive NICE recommendation. Since January 2022, NICE has recommended all but one of the treatments for breast cancer that it has assessed, including treatments for secondary breast cancer such as Truqap and Korserdu, which are now available to eligible NHS patients.

The National Cancer Plan for England will be published later this year and will set out further details on how we will improve outcomes for all cancer patients, including those with secondary breast cancer. The National Cancer Plan will have patients at its heart and will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and diagnosis to treatment and aftercare.