Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support the (a) development and (b) rollout of biomarker tests to support early detection of (i) pancreatic cancer and (ii) other less survivable cancers in primary care services.

million NHS programme. This is funding more than 300 general practices (GPs) to identify pancreatic cancer early by screening high-risk patients over 60 years old with new diabetes diagnoses and unexplained weight loss. More than 80 GPs across England have begun using the initiative. It will be extended to the other general practices participating in the trial by the end of the year.

The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) is developing a National Inherited Cancer Predisposition Register (NICPR), which launched on 30 June. The NICPR looks at a wide range of cancers for which there is an increased inherited risk, including for less survivable cancers. It aims to identify high-risk individuals who are eligible for targeted screening and surveillance, and will act as an electronic referral route into national screening programmes where these exist.