PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Bowel Cancer: Disadvantaged (16 February 2024)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made an assessment of the (a) extent of and (b) reasons for geographical disparities in the number and proportion of bowel cancers diagnosed at stages (i) 3 and (ii) 4 in the last five years.

Asked by:
Taiwo Owatemi (Labour)

The Department and the National Health Service are working to improve bowel cancer outcomes for patients across England including an improvement of referral rates. Through the Help Us Help You campaign, the NHS has urged people to take up the offer of bowel screening when invited, while gradually extending the screening offer from those aged 60 years old, down to those aged 50 years old, ensuring more people are diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage.

The NHS is also now offering routine preventative bowel cancer screening to thousands of people in England with a genetic condition, Lynch syndrome, that increases their chance of developing certain cancers. This gives the NHS a better chance of finding cancers at a time when they can be more easily and effectively treated.

Tackling disparities is important in improving cancer outcomes. The Government is committed to its levelling up mission to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030 and increase healthy life expectancy by five years, by 2035. Our approach will continue to focus on supporting people to live healthier lives, helping the NHS and social care to provide the best treatment and care for patients, and tackling health disparities through national and system interventions such as the NHS’s Core20PLUS5 programme.

Answered by:
Andrew Stephenson (Conservative)
23 February 2024