PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(16 December 2024)

It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer, including blood cancer, as early and quickly as possible, and to treat it faster, to improve outcomes for all patients across England, including in the Romford constituency.

The Department is committing to this by improving waiting times for cancer treatment, starting by delivering an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week, to support faster diagnosis and access to treatment. In addition, NHS England has implemented non-specific symptom pathways for patients who present with non-specific symptoms, or combinations thereof, that can indicate several different cancers. This includes leukaemia, which can present non-specific symptoms, such as unexpected weight loss and night sweats. From our national evaluation, blood cancers are one of the most common cancer types diagnosed through these pathways.

The Department is committed to implementing the recommendations of Lord O'Shaughnessy’s review into commercial clinical trials, making sure that the United Kingdom leads the world in clinical trials, and ensuring that innovative, lifesaving treatments are accessible to NHS patients, including those with blood cancer. Most recently, in response to the findings of Lord Darzi’s independent investigation into the NHS, the Department has launched an extensive programme of engagement to develop a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the NHS.

In September this year, NHS England announced a new targeted treatment, quizartinib, to be prescribed to newly diagnosed patients with a specific type of leukaemia, boosting their chance of remission and long-term survival, made available through the NHS England’s Cancer Drugs Fund, which fast-tracks new innovative cancer treatments into standard care. This followed a previous announcement in August, announcing the new treatment, Zanubrutini, for those with marginal zone lymphoma, which could halt the progression of their cancer and provide an alternative to further rounds of chemotherapy.