Written questions by Jones.

How much and what proportion of the funding for NHS England announced in the Autumn Budget 2024 will be spent on (a) National Insurance contribution increases and (b) existing overspends by (i) NHS England and (ii) his Department.

We have taken necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget, and this enabled the Spending Review settlement of a £22.6 billion increase in resource spending for the Department, from 2023/24 outturn to 2025/26.The Department will set out further details on the allocation of funding for next year at the earliest opportunity, including through planning guidance. We are not planning for overspends in 2025/26 by either NHS England or the Department overall.

What steps his Department is taking to help reduce the costs associated with children and young people travelling within the UK for cancer treatment.

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 children and young people with cancer. The National Health Service in England runs schemes to provide financial assistance for travel to a hospital, or other NHS premises, for specialist NHS treatment or diagnostics tests, when referred by a doctor or other primary healthcare professional. This includes the NHS Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme (HTCS), which provides financial assistance to patients who do not have a medical need for transport, but who require assistance with the costs of travelling to receive certain NHS services. Patients who do not qualify for the HTCS and who are on a low income may be able to claim the costs from the Department for Work and Pensions through Universal Credit or Personal Independence Payment.

What steps his Department is taking to increase levels of awareness on the (a) signs and (b) symptoms of cancer among young people and their families.

We are committed to getting the National Health Service catching cancer on time, diagnosing it earlier, and treating it faster, so that more patients survive this horrible set of diseases. This includes in relation to children and young people.NHS England and other NHS organisations, nationally and locally, publish information on the signs and symptoms of many different types of cancer, including those that are most common in children. Further information on cancer signs and symptoms is available on the NHS.UK website.We are committed to improving outcomes for children and young people with cancer, and we are considering the next steps to take forward work in this area through the relaunch of Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce.

How the additional funding announced in the Autumn Budget 2024 for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence will be allocated.

There was no additional funding announced for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

What data his Department holds on the average cost of (a) bowel and (b) all cancer care at stage (i) 1, (ii), 2, (iii) 3 and (iv) 4 for patients referred by the NHS in England.

There is currently no available data on the average cost, broken down into cost per stage, of bowel cancer, or all cancer care. However, the following table shows the cost of cancer treatment in National Health Service trusts, reported over the last five years:YearCost2019/20£3,800,000,0002020/21£4,100,000,0002021/22£4,300,000,0002022/23£5,600,000,0002023/24Not availableSource: the data is based on Patient Level Costing submissions from NHS trusts, and other data submissionsNote: the data shows the cost of activities recorded against primary cancer ICD10 codes.This will not include all costs associated with cancer treatment if these are not recorded or linked in the data, for example some diagnostics. It excludes primary care, independent sector, non-NHS activities, and data from some trusts who were excluded from the cost submission for underlying data issues.

With reference to the oral contribution of the Minister of State for Health in response to the question from the hon. Member of Wokingham of Wednesday 11 December, Official Report, column 290WH, how his Department plans to collect evidence for the national cancer plan.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave the Hon. Member for York Central on 11 November 2024 to Question 12437.

What steps his Department is taking to improve research capacity for cancer in the (a) Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and West Berkshire integrated care board and b) NHS in England.

Through the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR), the Department invests in building research expertise and capacity, and specialist facilities and support services, to support research across all aspects of human health, including cancer.Since 2006, the NIHR has supported 189 personal career development awards for researchers working on cancer, as well as 526 awards through the NIHR Integrated Academic Training Programme for doctors and dentists, which combines research training with clinical training. The NIHR also supports the Cancer Research Transatlantic Development and Skills Award and co-funds fellowships with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, focussed on research into brain cancer.The Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMCs), co-funded by the NIHR and Cancer Research UK, act as a United Kingdom-wide network, bringing together world-leading laboratory and clinical researchers to test new treatments for adults and children with cancer. Other infrastructure supporting cancer research includes the NIHR Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) and Clinical Research Facilities (CRFs), many of which have specialist expertise in cancer.The Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and West Berkshire Integrated Care Board benefits from infrastructure supporting cancer research, including the Oxford and Southampton ECMCs, BRCs and CRFs, and the South Central Regional Research Delivery Network.

What steps his Department is taking to tackle the future demand for cancer services in (a) the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire West integrated care board and (b) England.

The Department is committed to tackling the future demand for cancer services, and this includes cancer patients in the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire West Integrated Care Board, and across England.Developing our workforce is key to responding to the future demand for cancer services. NHS England invested approximately £90 million on training and educating the cancer and diagnostics workforce throughout 2024/25, focusing on growing the number of specialist doctors, nurses, support workers, and allied health professionals, as well as providing opportunities to upskill those already providing frontline services.To ensure the most advanced treatment is available to patients, we are investing £70 million in new radiotherapy machines. In addition, we are committed to improving waiting times for cancer treatment across England. As a first step, we will deliver an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week, helping to ensure earlier diagnoses and faster treatment for those who need it most.The National Health Service will maximise the pace of the roll-out of the additional diagnostic capacity, delivering the final year of the three-year investment plan for establishing Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs), and ensuring timely implementation of new CDC locations and upgrades to existing CDCs, with capacity prioritised for cancer diagnostics.

Whether the rebuild of the Royal Berkshire Hospital will include IT (a) infrastructure and (b) equipment necessary for greater research capacity.

Plans for the new Royal Berkshire Hospital as part of the New Hospital Programme (NHP) are at the early stages of development. The trust is currently developing their Strategic Outline Case for the scheme to establish their preferred way forward. This is the first stage of the business case process, and as set out in the HM Treasury Green book, the Strategic Outline Case is followed by an Outline Business Case, and finally a Full Business Case.The NHP’s approach to standardising design for future hospitals, known as Hospital 2.0, is being designed with clinical and operational staff. Part of the Hospital 2.0 design is to integrate digital solutions and smart technology to increase productivity and drive efficiency, empowering staff to maximise the use of the facilities. Through the business case process, individual trusts will put forward plans for the relevant infrastructure to meet their digital and research requirements.

What estimate he has made of the proportion of patients that have received a colonoscopy and subsequently been referred to cancer treatment pathways in each of the last five years.

No estimate has been made regarding the proportion of patients, in each of the last five years, who received a colonoscopy, and who were then referred to a cancer treatment pathway. The following table shows the proportion of patients who received a colonoscopy and who were subsequently referred to cancer treatment pathways:YearNumber of colonoscopiesNumber of new colorectal cancer diagnosesProportion of colonoscopies that resulted in a colorectal cancer diagnosis2020310,61633,33410.7%2021483,96940,8478.4%2022465,64639,2088.4%2023-40,449-2024-22,792-Source: data on the number of colonoscopies undertaken per annum in England is from the Fingertips data collection, and data on the number of colorectal cancer diagnosis per annum in England is from the CancerData data collection, with further information on both available, respectively, at the following two links: https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/ https://www.cancerdata.nhs.uk/ Note: data on the number of new colorectal cancer diagnoses is incomplete for 2024.Patients may receive a colonoscopy for a variety of different health reasons including, but not limited to, cancer. The Government and the National Health Service are taking crucial steps to improve cancer outcomes for patients across England, including for those with bowel cancer.

What the potential cost to the public purse is of diagnostic colonoscopies per foundation trust in each year since since 2020.

The attached table shows the potential cost to the public purse of diagnostic colonoscopies per foundation trust, each year since 2020, as well as the spend across all National Health Service foundation trusts for two groups of patient activity, specifically: a diagnostic colonoscopy with a biopsy, for those aged 19 years old and over; and just a diagnostic colonoscopy, for those aged 19 years old and over.

What steps (a) his Department and (b) NHS England are taking to support the use of (a) medical devices and (b) diagnostic tools after piloting; and what funding his Department provides for such tools and devices.

The Department and NHS England provide support to innovators and systems across the innovation lifecycle, from ideation and design, through to adoption and scaling. A number of policies and programmes are targeted at the adoption of medical devices and diagnostic tools after piloting.In February 2023, the Department published its first ever strategy for MedTech, as well as the One Year On Report in April 2024, outlining our priorities for improving the adoption and spread of safe, effective, and innovative medical technologies across the National Health Service.To help innovators ‘find the front door’ of the NHS, the NHS Innovation Service supports the creation of an Innovation Record and enables support from at least one of 25 organisations, including the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), the Medicines Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority, the National Institute of Health Research, the Health Innovation Network, and the NHS Supply Chain, which provide support across research and testing, to adoption and spread. To date, this service has supported 870 innovations.There are several programmes which directly support early-stage innovators and innovations in designing, developing, and scaling their innovations. The Clinical Entrepreneur Programme is the world's largest entrepreneurial workforce development programme. The NHS Innovation Accelerator provides innovators with support and mentorship to enable adoption of high impact products with demonstrable clinical benefit. The Small Business Research Initiative Healthcare funds the acceleration of innovations to tackle unmet health and care needs. The Innovative Device Access Pathway, with system partners, is supporting eight transformative technologies by providing regulatory and access requirements in route to market. Furthermore, NHS InSites supports the NHS to develop its innovation capability infrastructure.To support later stage innovations with scale and adoption, there are two programmes that have been in place. The MedTech Funding Mandate aims to accelerate equitable patient access to selected NICE recommended technologies, with 12 technologies accelerated to date. Commissioners are mandated to fund these technologies from existing allocations. Additionally, the Health Tech Adoption and Accelerator Fund, investing approximately £28 million to integrated care boards in 2022/23, supports the procurement and implementation of 81 different technologies, mostly supporting virtual wards, at home management, and elective recovery. Spending decisions for use and expansion of new technology is subject to regular review as part of usual financial planning processes.The adoption of innovative products across the NHS is supported by the Innovation Dynamic Purchasing System, aiming to reduce barriers to entry for small to medium size enterprises bringing innovation into the NHS.Looking forward, a consultation on a proposed integrated rules-based pathway was launched by NHS England and the NICE in May 2024, which laid out the creation of a predictable, consistent pathway to access and adoption of medical technology. This would also support technology that had already been piloted to scale in the system. The consultation closed in September 2024 and responses are currently being reviewed.

If he will make it his policy to implement the recommendations of Bowel Cancer UK's report entitled Delivering the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan: A review of progress of bowel cancer in England, published on 3 December 2024.

The Health Mission sets the objective of building a National Health Service fit for the future. As part of that work, and in response to Lord Darzi’s report, we have launched an extensive programme of engagement to develop a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the NHS. The plan will set out a bold agenda to deliver on the three big shifts, from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention. Lord Darzi’s independent investigation into the NHS highlighted that there is more to be done to increase the speed at which patients are diagnosed with, and treated for, cancer. His report will inform our 10-year plan to reform the NHS, which will include further details on how we will improve cancer diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes, including for bowel cancer. We are also currently in discussions about what form a potential cancer plan for England should take, including its relationship to the 10-Year Health Plan and the Government’s wider Health Mission, and will provide updates in due course. In addition, the Department is taking steps to improve the rate of early diagnosis for all cancers, including bowel and bowel-related cancers. We will support the NHS to transform diagnostic services by spending £1.5 billion on new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners, to build capacity for over 30,000 more procedures and 1.25 million diagnostic tests.

How much and what proportion of the increase in funding for his Department announced at the Autumn Budget 2024 will be spent on (a) National Insurance contribution increases, (b) pay increases, and (c) overspend by his Department.

We have taken necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget, and this enabled the Spending Review settlement of a £22.6 billion increase in resource spending for the Department, from 2023/24 outturn to 2025/26.National Insurance contributions will be funded from staffing budgets in the usual way. We have provided written evidence to the Pay Review Bodies setting out our view on what pay increases are affordable, but the eventual spend on pay increases will not be determined until we respond to the Pay Review Body recommendations, which we will do at the earliest opportunity. Finally, the Department is not planning to overspend.

How many (a) newly-qualified GPs have been employed and (b) primary care networks have claimed reimbursement under the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme GP Sum in each integrated care board since August 2024.

Data on the number of general practitioners employed through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme is currently not available.

Pursuant to the Answer of 15 November 2024 to Question 13928 on Cancer: Health Services and with reference to the Plan for Change: Milestones for mission-led government, CP 1210, published on 5 December 2024, whether it remains his policy to meet all NHS cancer waiting time targets within five years.

The Government recognises the importance of, and remains committed to meeting, all three National Health Service cancer waiting time standards across England. These are the 28-day faster diagnosis standard, the 31-day decision to treat to treatment standard, and the 62-day referral to treatment standard. Lord Darzi’s report has laid bare the true extent of the challenges facing our health service, which is why we have launched our 10 Year Plan to radically reform the NHS and build a health service that is fit for the future. Following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will publish the new national cancer plan, which will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, including improving performance against the cancer waiting time standards.

Pursuant to the Answer of 12 November 2024 to Question 12590 on Breast Cancer: Genetics, what steps his Department is taking to reduce regional inequities in access to genetic counselling.

We have launched a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the National Health Service. A central and core part of the 10-Year Health Plan will be our workforce and how we ensure we train and provide the staff, such as genetic counsellors, as well as the technology and infrastructure the NHS needs to care for patients across our communities.

What steps he is taking to ensure that young people with cancer have equity of access to age-appropriate, specialist psychological support in the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire West Integrated Care Board area.

The Department is dedicated to ensuring all children and young people with cancer have access to psychological support to help them through their diagnosis and treatment.NHS England has published service specifications that set out the service standards required of all providers of children and young people cancer services, including those in the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (ICB) area. The requirements include ensuring that every patient has access to specialist care and reducing physical, emotional and psychological morbidity arising from treatment for childhood cancer. More information on the specifications is available at the following link:https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/group-b/b05/Children and young people’s cancer care is managed by principal treatment centres (PTCs) who ensure quality care. Within the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire West ICB area, this would be Oxford Children’s Hospital as part of the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. Each PTC has a multi-disciplinary team which meets at least weekly and includes a specific focus on the psychosocial needs of patient. The multi-disciplinary team ensures that each service user is assessed for psychological needs and can access any psychosocial support that is required.

Pursuant to the Answer of 11 November 2024 to Question 12587 on Breast Cancer: Nurses, whether his Department's plans to train clinical cancer staff will be included in the (a) forthcoming NHS ten-year plan and (b) national cancer plan.

The Government has set out plans to publish a ten-year plan to reform the National Health Service. The plan will be informed by Lord Darzi’s report and will include further details on how we will improve cancer diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes. Including for breast cancer.In addition, following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will develop a new national cancer plan, which will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients. We will continue to ensure that we train the staff we need to ensure patients are cared for by the right professional, when and where they need it and the cancer plan will reflect this.We are now in discussions about what form that plan should take, and what its relationship to the 10-Year Health Plan and the Government’s wider Health Mission should be and will provide updates on this in due course.

What steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for the (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment of cancer in teenagers and young adults in the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and West Berkshire Integrated Care Board area.

We are committed to getting the National Health Service diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster, so that more patients survive, including children, teenagers, and young adults.The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has set out detailed guidance for general practices on the symptoms of cancer in children and young people, recommending referral within 48 hours for those presenting with a range of potential cancer symptoms, ensuring that children and young people are being diagnosed faster.The Department is also taking steps to improve waiting times for cancer diagnosis and treatment across all cancer patient groups in England, by delivering an extra 40,000 scans, appointments, and operations each week to ensure that patients are seen and treated as quickly as possible.Furthermore, the NHS will maximise the pace of the roll-out of additional diagnostic capacity, delivering the final year of the three-year investment plan for establishing Community Diagnostic Centres. They will also increase capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services through investment in new capacity, including magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanners.