Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions her Department has had with cancer treatment support groups on the use of direct funds to support patients and their families.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care, and plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer treatment, which encompasses recovery spaces. Additionally, and as outlined in the 2024/25 NHS England Planning Guidance, NHS England are providing over £266 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances, to support delivery of the operational priorities for cancer.
The Department and NHS England meet regularly to discuss a wide range of issues regarding cancer. The Department's ministers and officials also frequently meet with key stakeholders within the cancer community, including discussions on support for patients and their families. As stated in the NHS Long Term Plan for Cancer, where appropriate, every person diagnosed with cancer will have access to personalised care, including needs assessment, a care plan and health and wellbeing information, and support. NHS England provides personalised cancer care and support plans, to support both patients and their families at all stages of their cancer journey. This is being delivered in line with the NHS Comprehensive Model for Personalised Care, empowering people to manage their care and the impact of their cancer, and maximise the potential of digital and community-based support. NHS England estimates that approximately 80% of cancer multidisciplinary teams are now offering Personalised Care and Support Planning, ensuring physical, practical, emotional, and social needs are identified and addressed at all stages of the cancer pathway. Additionally, Personalised Stratified Follow Up pathways, which adapt care to the needs of individual patients after cancer treatment, are being rolled out by cancer multi-disciplinary teams, and are required for at least eight cancer types by 2023/24.
General practice surgeries also conduct cancer care reviews at regular intervals after cancer diagnosis, to offer support with any needs patients may have. This includes providing access to other specialist-led services who work alongside patients’ medical teams, to support patients and their families, such as counsellors, rehabilitation specialists, or social prescribers, who can connect you to community groups or services for more support. This is part of NHS England’s drive to universal personalised care that will see at least 2.5 million people benefiting from personalised care by 2023/24.
NHS England and the integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning and ensuring the healthcare needs of local communities in England are met, including for cancer patients. NHS England provide access to a personal health budget, which is an amount of NHS money that is allocated to support the health and wellbeing needs of a patient if eligible. More information is available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/help-with-health-costs/what-is-a-personal-health-budget/
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding has her Department allocated to provide recovery spaces for families of cancer treatment patients.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care, and plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer treatment, which encompasses recovery spaces. Additionally, and as outlined in the 2024/25 NHS England Planning Guidance, NHS England are providing over £266 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances, to support delivery of the operational priorities for cancer.
The Department and NHS England meet regularly to discuss a wide range of issues regarding cancer. The Department's ministers and officials also frequently meet with key stakeholders within the cancer community, including discussions on support for patients and their families. As stated in the NHS Long Term Plan for Cancer, where appropriate, every person diagnosed with cancer will have access to personalised care, including needs assessment, a care plan and health and wellbeing information, and support. NHS England provides personalised cancer care and support plans, to support both patients and their families at all stages of their cancer journey. This is being delivered in line with the NHS Comprehensive Model for Personalised Care, empowering people to manage their care and the impact of their cancer, and maximise the potential of digital and community-based support. NHS England estimates that approximately 80% of cancer multidisciplinary teams are now offering Personalised Care and Support Planning, ensuring physical, practical, emotional, and social needs are identified and addressed at all stages of the cancer pathway. Additionally, Personalised Stratified Follow Up pathways, which adapt care to the needs of individual patients after cancer treatment, are being rolled out by cancer multi-disciplinary teams, and are required for at least eight cancer types by 2023/24.
General practice surgeries also conduct cancer care reviews at regular intervals after cancer diagnosis, to offer support with any needs patients may have. This includes providing access to other specialist-led services who work alongside patients’ medical teams, to support patients and their families, such as counsellors, rehabilitation specialists, or social prescribers, who can connect you to community groups or services for more support. This is part of NHS England’s drive to universal personalised care that will see at least 2.5 million people benefiting from personalised care by 2023/24.
NHS England and the integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning and ensuring the healthcare needs of local communities in England are met, including for cancer patients. NHS England provide access to a personal health budget, which is an amount of NHS money that is allocated to support the health and wellbeing needs of a patient if eligible. More information is available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/help-with-health-costs/what-is-a-personal-health-budget/
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to paragraph 3.64 of the NHS Long Term Plan, published in January 2019, what steps she is taking to ensure that every person diagnosed with cancer will have access to (a) personalised care, (b) a needs assessment, (c) a care plan and (d) health and wellbeing information and support.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ensuring every person diagnosed with cancer has access to personalised care and support is a key priority for the Government. The NHS Long Term Plan for cancer states that where appropriate, every person diagnosed with cancer will have access to personalised care, including needs assessment, a care plan, and health and wellbeing information and support. NHS England is committed to ensuring that all cancer patients have access to a Holistic Needs Assessment and Personalised Care and Support Planning, ensuring care is focused on what matters most to each person. Additionally, End of Treatment Summaries are being introduced, which aims to empower people to manage the impact of their cancer after treatment. Health and wellbeing information and support is provided from diagnosis onwards, and includes access to NHS Talking Therapy services for anxiety and depression. This is alongside wider work to improve psychosocial support for people affected by cancer, such as through local partnerships with cancer support charities.
NHS England and the integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning and ensuring that the healthcare needs of local communities in England are met, including for cancer patients. NHS England provides access to a personal health budget, which is an amount of National Health Service money that is allocated to support the health and wellbeing needs of a patient, if eligible. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/help-with-health-costs/what-is-a-personal-health-budget/
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to ensure equity and quality in care and support across the entire cancer pathway, including (1) fairness and equity in diagnostics, (2) on time treatment, and (3) patients being offered conversations about the additional care and support they may need.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is taking steps to ensure equity and quality in care and support for patients is available across the entire cancer pathway. Reducing inequalities and variation in cancer diagnosis and treatment are a priority for the Government, as is increasing early cancer diagnosis, as this is a key contributor to reducing cancer health inequalities. The Government is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care, and plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment activity. As part of this, we are increasing diagnostic capacity by rolling out community diagnostic centres across England, with capacity prioritised for cancer checks. Additionally, and as outlined in the 2024/25 NHS England Planning Guidance, NHS England is providing over £266 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances, to support delivery of the operational priorities for cancer.
The Department's ministers and officials frequently meet with key stakeholders within the cancer community, including discussions on support for patients and their families. The National Health Service provides personalised cancer care and support plans, to support both patients and their families at all stages of their cancer journey. This is being delivered in line with the NHS Comprehensive Model for Personalised Care, empowering people to manage their care and the impact of their cancer, and maximise the potential of digital and community-based support.
General practice surgeries also conduct cancer care reviews at regular intervals after cancer diagnosis, to offer support with any needs patients may have. This includes providing access to other specialist-led services who work alongside patients’ medical teams, to support patients and their families, such as counsellors, rehabilitation specialists, or social prescribers, who can connect you to community groups or services for more support.
NHS England and the integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning and ensuring the healthcare needs of local communities in England are met, including for cancer patients. NHS England provides access to a personal health budget, which is an amount of NHS money that is allocated to support the health and wellbeing needs of a patient, if eligible.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 25 April 2024 to Question 23061 on Cancer: Health Services, what steps she is taking to ensure that NHS trusts have sufficient cancer treatment capacity to adequately support the number of people that are being diagnosed.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has allocated an additional £8 billion across this Spending Review period, to increase capacity and support elective recovery. Cancer treatment levels are at a record high, with approximately 345,000 people having received their first cancer treatment in the twelve months to February 2024.
As outlined in the 2024/25 NHS England Planning Guidance, NHS England is providing over £266 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances, to support the delivery of the operational priorities for cancer.
We are expanding capacity through our community diagnostic centres (CDCs), supported by £2.3 billion of capital funding, with 160 CDCs currently operational and having delivered almost 8 million additional tests, checks, and scans, including vital cancer checks.
Asked by: Baroness Merron (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve the collection and reporting of ethnicity data for breast cancer patients to support understanding of variations in outcomes and patient experience of NHS care.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Reducing inequalities and improving breast cancer outcomes for ethnic minority women is a priority for the Government. To support this work, NHS England has commissioned six new cancer clinical audits, which will provide timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, increase the consistency of access to treatments, and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatments and outcomes for patients, including for breast cancer. The Royal College of Surgeons began work on this audit in October 2022, and the first outcomes are expected in September 2024.
NHS England is also leading a programme of work to tackle healthcare inequalities centred around five clear priorities, which are set out in the operational planning guidance for the health system. The Core20PLUS5 approach proactively targets groups that are less likely to engage with services in the most deprived quintile of the population, along with ethnic minority communities and inclusion health groups, across five clinical areas which includes early cancer diagnosis, specifically screening and early referral.
The issue of improving equality monitoring, by reference to ethnicity and the other eight protected characteristics, is being considered at a national level under the programme called the Unified Information Standard for Protected Characteristics (UISPC). Evaluating the use of the 2021 ethnicity census categories is part of this programme. The UISPC Publication Steering Group is reporting to NHS England and the Department this year, which will inform a view on the next steps, including any plans for publication and consultation, and an implementation timetable. Preparatory work has been undertaken by NHS England that would facilitate the introduction of the 2021 ethnicity codes, should a decision be made to adopt the 2021 ethnicity census codes, or to implement an alternative approach to ethnicity, if recommended.
NHS England’s operational planning guidance recognises the importance of improving the quality of data for patient characteristics. This is one of the five strategic priorities in their drive to reduce healthcare inequalities, as improved data quality will help to reveal health inequalities and inform action to address them. NHS England has therefore asked systems to continue to improve the collection and recording of ethnicity data across primary care, outpatients, accident and emergency, mental health, community services, and specialised commissioning.
NHS England’s National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) collects ethnicity data for all cancer patients through a variety of routine, national data feeds, including the Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset, Hospital Episode Statistics data, and Patient Administration System data. The NDRS publishes key performance indicator data on the national registration statistics for England. The latest published indicator data, for invasive cancer cases excluding non-melanoma skin cancers, diagnosed in 2020, shows that ethnicity data is complete for 94.9% of cases.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what criteria were used to determine the cancer types selected for the evaluation of treatment and services by the Royal College of Surgeons and NHS England; and whether an assessment was made of the potential merits of including liver cancer in that study.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The cancer clinical audit review undertaken in 2021 was based on the level of variation apparent, based on proxy indicators and the difference in outcomes we might expect that variation to result in. This led to five new cancer clinical audits being commissioned in 2022, with liver cancer being taken into consideration during the selection process, but not proposed for an audit at that time.
As part of NHS England’s commitment to implementing wider NHS Long Term Plan actions relating to both cancer and liver disease detection and management, there have been discussions as to whether a review of adult liver services should be undertaken in the future. Should such a review take place, the Specialised Commissioning Hepatobiliary Clinical Reference Group will be a key contributor, working in collaboration with colleagues responsible for non-specialised aspects of the liver pathway, including the Hepatitis C and early diagnosis programmes, as well as integrated care boards. The case for a review of liver services will be considered in the context of available resources, taking into account the other priorities to be delivered by the NHS England specialised commissioning team, other related national programmes, and local commissioning teams.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of performance against the 62-day referral to treatment cancer standard in England.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In February 2024, 63.9% of patients, against the standard of 85%, received treatment within 62 days of an urgent suspected cancer or breast symptomatic referral or consultant upgrade, to a first definitive treatment for cancer. This is 1.6% higher than performance in January 2024, and 1.4% higher than the same time last year.
The pandemic and recent industrial action placed significant pressure on elective services, including cancer care. We are seeing record levels of referrals, with over 12,000 urgent referrals seen for suspected cancer per working day in February 2024.
As outlined in the 2024/25 NHS England Planning Guidance, NHS England is providing over £266 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances to support delivery of the operational priorities for cancer, which includes increasing and prioritising diagnostic and treatment capacity. The Government remains committed to continuing its recovery from the pandemic, and specifically, to reduce local and national waiting times for cancer treatment.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool, West Derby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to reduce waiting times for cancer (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment in Merseyside.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is taking steps to reduce cancer diagnosis and treatment waiting times across England, including Merseyside. The Government is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care, and plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment activity. Additionally, as outlined in the 2024/25 NHS England Planning Guidance, NHS England are providing over £266 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances to support delivery of the operational priorities for cancer.
The latest published cancer performance data for Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board (ICB) shows that in March 2024, 76% of patients referred met the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS), which aims to ensure patients have cancer diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days of referral from a general practice or screening services. This surpasses the 75% standard and shows an improvement of 5.8% since March 2023.
Similarly, the latest performance data for Cheshire and Merseyside ICB shows that of those referred for cancer treatment in in March 2024, 92.4% met the 31-day wait from a decision to treat to first or subsequent treatment of cancer combined standard, and 75.4% met the 62-day referral to first definitive treatment for cancer combined standard. According to data from NHS England, this is above national cancer performance for both treatment standards.
Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with NHS England on progress on improving outcomes for patients suffering from pancreatic cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Tackling cancer is a key priority for the Government. Ministers and officials continue to work closely with NHS England to increase positive outcomes for all cancer types, including pancreatic cancer. The National Health Service is delivering a range of interventions expected to increase early diagnosis and improve outcomes for those with pancreatic cancer. This includes: providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for those at inherited high-risk, to identify lesions before they develop into cancer, and diagnose cancers sooner; creating new pathways to support faster referral routes for people with non-specific symptoms that could be linked to a range of cancer types; and increasing direct access for general practitioners to arrange diagnostic tests.
NHS England is also funding a new audit into pancreatic cancer to increase the consistency of access to treatments, and to stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes. The Royal College of Surgeons began work on this audit in October 2022, and the first report is expected in October 2024. In addition to this, the Getting it Right First Time team in NHS England is undertaking a deep dive into pancreatic cancer, which will highlight actions NHS providers need to take to improve services, as well as gathering examples of good practice to share.
The NHS is working towards its Long Term Plan ambition of diagnosing 75% of stageable cancers at stage one and two by 2028. Achieving this will mean that an additional 55,000 people each year will survive their cancer for at least five years after diagnosis. With progress made on reducing waiting times, cancer is being diagnosed at an earlier stage more often, with survival rates improving across almost all types of cancer.