Cancer Diagnoses

20 Oct 2025Health & NHS
Dr Lauren SullivanLabour PartyGravesham15 words

8. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the time taken for cancer diagnoses.

Ashley DaltonLabour PartyWest Lancashire62 words

This Government are investing an extra £26 billion in the NHS, opening up community diagnostic centres at evenings and weekends and delivering 5 million more appointments to catch cancer earlier. We are making progress: 135,000 more patients have already had cancer diagnosed or ruled out within the 28-day target compared with the previous year—a lot done, and a lot more to do.

Dr Lauren SullivanLabour PartyGravesham95 words

A local teacher went to her GP with clear symptoms of a facial tumour but was told it was simply the effects of age. It took almost two years to receive a confirmed diagnosis, including eight months lost in the system after an urgent referral. Does the Minister agree that reducing times for cancer diagnosis must start with strengthening systems to support early recognition and follow-up, so that no one is left waiting? I wish the Minister well with her own cancer battle and thank her for bravely sharing her experience of living with cancer.

Ashley DaltonLabour PartyWest Lancashire89 words

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and her well wishes. We are taking cancer detection seriously in general practice, and there is work to do. It is why we have recently launched Jess’s rule, which is a patient safety initiative that means when patients return three times with worsening or undiagnosed symptoms, GPs must reflect, review and rethink. That could include a second opinion, episodic continuity of care or ordering additional tests. I wish her constituent the very best and offer her my sympathies in her diagnosis.

Mr Louie FrenchConservative and Unionist PartyOld Bexley and Sidcup92 words

The Government claim that they wish to reduce NHS waiting times, but I have written confirmation from the Government that they have slashed funding for community diagnostic centres. The consequences of Labour’s funding cuts mean that brand new facilities, such as those at Queen Mary’s hospital in Sidcup, for which I secured £9.6 million of funding from the last Conservative Government, can now open only two days per week. Will the Minister urgently review that funding cut, so that more patients in Bexley and across the UK can get their diagnostics quicker?

Ashley DaltonLabour PartyWest Lancashire65 words

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but I think he might be mistaken. We are opening more CDCs than ever before—I have lost count of the amount of CDCs we have been invited to open—and we are making sure that people have access to diagnostics in their community, from hospital to community, with the most access that there has been for some years.