Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure equitable access to cancer treatment and care across different regions of the UK; and what steps they are taking to improve cancer survival rates.

Reducing inequalities and variation in cancer treatment is a priority for this Government as is increasing early cancer diagnosis, as this is a key contributor to reducing cancer health inequalities. People in deprived areas are at greater risk of contracting cancer, more likely to have a cancer diagnosed at a later stage and suffer from higher cancer death rates and poorer survival. Survival rates have been improving for almost all cancers and across all demographics, with 74.6% people surviving a year after diagnosis, up from 65.6% in 2005, and 55.7% surviving five years, up from 47.9% in 2005.

The National Health Service has rolled out Targeted Lung Health Checks, prioritising more deprived areas, so that people in the most deprived quintile are now more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer at an early stage, namely stage one or two, than those in the least deprived quintile, giving them a much greater chance of survival.

On 14 August 2023, the Government published a strategic framework for the Major Conditions Strategy to consider the six conditions, including cancer, that contribute most to morbidity and mortality across the population in England, including cancer. The Major Conditions Strategy will apply a geographical lens to each condition to address regional disparities in health outcomes, supporting the levelling up mission to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030.