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 help speed up (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment of cancer.

We have established 91 community diagnostic centres (CDCs) to allow patients to benefit from earlier diagnostic tests closer to home, including for cancer. We will deliver up to 160 CDCs to allow the National Health Service to undertake up to 17 million tests by March 2025, with capacity for a further nine million per year once fully operational. NHS England has committed to ensuring that 95% of patients requiring a diagnostic test will receive it within six weeks by March 2025.

In September 2022, there were more than 250,000 urgent general practitioner referrals and approximately 50,000 people had their first or subsequent treatment for cancer in September 2022, which equates to 104% of pre-pandemic levels. More than nine out of 10 people starting their first treatment for the disease do so within one month of receiving the decision to treat.