Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the current cost of radiotherapy services in England, following the publication of the HERO (Health Economics in Radiation Oncology) report by the UK Radiotherapy Board.

Since 2016, there has been significant investment in radiotherapy equipment, so that every radiotherapy provider had access to modern, cutting-edge radiotherapy equipment, enabling the rollout of new techniques like stereotactic ablative radiotherapy. The total central investment made between 2016 and 2021 was £162 million, and enabled the replacement or upgrade of approximately 100 radiotherapy treatment machines. This is investment on top of that committed by National Health Service trusts, either from their own capital budgets or via donations. From April 2022, the responsibility for investing in new radiotherapy machines sits with local systems. This is supported by the 2021 spending review, which set aside £12 billion in operational capital for the NHS.