Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his department has made of the potential merits of a national rollout of community diagnostic centres to improve access to primary care services for people with pancreatic cancer.

The Department remains committed to improving access to cancer diagnostic services and treatment, including for harder to diagnose tumour types such as pancreatic cancer.

The Government’s continued investment in community diagnostic centres (CDCs) enables the National Health Service to now deliver additional checks, tests, and scans at 170 CDCs, all of which deliver services 12 hours a day, seven days a week. This will enable the NHS to diagnose cancer faster and ensure that cancer patients, including those with pancreatic cancer, have timely access to primary care services.