Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the National Cancer Plan will commit to producing symptom awareness campaigns.

Early diagnosis is a key focus of the National Cancer Plan, which will be published in the new year. It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer as quickly as possible, and to treat it faster, and to improve outcomes.

NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns in England to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and to address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms, as well as encouraging body awareness, to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point.

The National Cancer Plan will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, including speeding up diagnosis and treatment, ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, and ultimately drive up this country’s cancer survival rates.