Written questions by Jones.

If he will make it his policy to fund a single digital tracking system for cancer tissue samples provided for genomic testing, so that that they may be tracked at every point of their journey.

Genomic testing in the National Health Service in England is provided through the NHS Genomic Medicine Service (NHS GMS). A central feature of the NHS GMS is the National Genomic Test Directory. The Test Directory outlines the full range of genomic tests that are commissioned and sets out the technology by which tests are available.NHS GMS provides a national Genomics Unit which is responsible for strategic oversight, direction, commissioning and funding and performance monitoring of genomics service.As the Department focuses on shifting from analogue to digital, we will continue to review opportunities to utilise artificial intelligence and digital innovations to speed up diagnostic performance, including for genomic testing, and bring down waiting times that will ultimately improve patient care and outcomes.  Furthermore, to support more extensive cancer genomic testing, NHS England is working to ensure collaboration between pathology and genomics networks to address issues including capacity, networking and optimisation of cancer tissue pathways.Additionally, the National Cancer Plan, due for publishing later in 2025, will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and diagnosis to treatment and ongoing care- as well as prevention, research and innovation, including for genomic testing pathways.

Whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of targeted screening for chronic kidney disease high-risk populations.

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) previously examined the evidence for a population screening programme for kidney disease in 2011 and recommended that a national screening programme should not be introduced. This was because, amongst other things, there was no evidence that screening would be effective at improving outcomes for those with a positive result, and programmes in other countries have not been found to be clinically or cost effective.Following the expansion of the UK NSC’s remit in 2022 to consider targeted and risk-stratified screening alongside population screening, the committee has not received a request to examine the evidence for a targeted screening programme for chronic kidney disease in high-risk populations. The UK NSC does however run an annual call whereby members of the public and stakeholders are encouraged to submit proposals to the UK NSC to consider either new screening programmes, modifications to existing screening programmes, request for an early update or consider stopping a screening programme. More information is available on the UK NSC website at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-national-screening-committeeThe NHS Health Check is a free check-up of one’s overall health for people aged between 40 and 74 years old. As part of the health check, kidney disease is one of the conditions that is looked at to inform the individual as to whether they may be at a higher risk of getting certain health problems such as:- heart disease;- diabetes;- kidney disease; and- stroke.During the check-up, there is a discussion about how to reduce one’s risk of these conditions.

Whether he plans to require Genomic Laboratory Hubs to adopt standardised reporting templates for genomics reports.

Professional groups, including the Association for Clinical Genomic Science, produce best practice guidance and standard templates for members on reporting genomic results to clinicians. Further information on the Association for Clinical Genomic Science is available at the following link:https://www.acgs.uk.com/In line with the data and digital elements in the NHS Genomics Strategy, moving forward, National Health Service Genomic Laboratory Hubs will be mandated to provide standardised reporting and structured data. Further information on the NHS Genomics Strategy is available at the following link:https://www.england.nhs.uk/genomics/genomics-strategy/This would support a consistent approach to reporting genomic data and enable the development of a Unified Genomic Record. This would enable patients to access insights from their genomic data where and when they are needed, as well as facilitating access to clinical trials, supporting other research and informing population health initiatives.

What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the reorganisation of NHS England into his Department on the provision of cancer screening programmes in England.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 22 May 2025 to Question 53355.

What steps his Department is taking to ensure that the availability of availability of cancer drugs is maintained during the reorganisation of NHS England.

Whilst this transformation takes place, we will ensure that we continue to evaluate impacts of all kinds and will work collaboratively to ensure continuity of care and that there are no risks to patient safety. Throughout the organisational change, NHS England will continue to undertake all its statutory functions, until parliamentary time allows for legislative changes to be made. Responsible commissioners will continue to be required to fund medicines for eligible patients in line with recommendations from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

What mechanisms his Department has in place to monitor the availability of cancer services during the reorganisation of NHS England into his Department.

Whilst this transformation takes place, we will ensure that we continue to evaluate impacts of all kinds, and we will work collaboratively to ensure continuity of care and that there are no risks to patient safety.We continue to work to reduce the time that people are waiting for a diagnosis of cancer and to start treatment, including through the Government’s investment of £70 million of central funding to replace outdated radiotherapy machines, to ensure the most advanced treatment is available to the patients who need it. We will also support the National Health Service to increase capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services through investment, including magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanners.To achieve this, in line with 2025/26 Planning Guidance, we have asked systems to continue to improve performance against the 28-day faster diagnosis standard to 80%, and the 62-day referral to treatment standard to 75% by March 2026.

What assessment he has made on the potential impact of abolishing NHS England on the availability of (a) abiraterone and (b) other similar drugs.

Whilst this transformation takes place, we will ensure that we continue to evaluate impacts of all kinds and will work collaboratively to ensure continuity of care and that there are no risks to patient safety. Throughout the organisational change, NHS England will continue to undertake all its statutory functions, until parliamentary time allows for legislative changes to be made. Responsible commissioners will continue to be required to fund medicines for eligible patients in line with recommendations from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

If he will review (a) guidelines and (b) referral criteria for the direct rectal examination for prostate cancer.

The Government is committed to ensuring that all patients with cancer, including prostate cancer, are diagnosed faster and more accurately, with the most appropriate diagnostic methods available. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that develops authoritative, evidence-based guidance on best practice for health and social care professionals in England.Current NICE guidance does not recommend digital rectal examination for diagnosing prostate cancer. NICE does recommend digital rectal examination as part of the physical examination that should be offered to all men with lower urinary tract symptoms as part of their initial assessment. The guidelines are available at the following link:https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng12/chapter/Recommendations-organised-by-site-of-cancer#urological-cancers

Pursuant to the Answer of 10 June 2025 to Question 57594 on Urinary Tract Infections: Vaccination, whether the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (a) is reviewing and (b) plans to review available vaccines for Urinary Tract Infection for use in the UK.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has identified vaccines to prevent recurrent urinary tract infections (UTI). These are currently in development.During a sub-committee meeting of the JCVI held on 25 November 2024, the pipeline vaccine against recurrent UTIs, known as uromune-MV140, was presented by its manufacturer, Inmunotek. Therapeutic vaccines are considered by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The committee awaits advice on whether the NICE will review this product. The minutes of the JCVI’s subcommittee meeting have been published on the JCVI website, at the following link:https://app.box.com/s/wv2uxkv7v9bisuf8ml8mdb19iemnzmv8/file/1808036070368

What steps he is taking to ensure that projects delivered through the Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation Fund support net zero objectives.

The Government is committed to delivering a National Health Service that is fit for the future and that recognises the importance of strategic, value for money investments in capital projects, such as new facilities, significant upgrades, or other targeted capital investments, to ensure we have world class infrastructure across the entire National Health Service estate.The £102 million Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation Fund will deliver upgrades this financial year to more than a thousand general practice surgeries across England. The schemes will create additional clinical space within existing building footprints to enable practices to see more patients, boost productivity, and improve patient care.The NHS has set a clear target of 2040 for achieving Net Zero across the estate, and all capital investment is expected to work toward this ambition where possible. This is supported by a raft of documents and standards, including the Estates Net Zero Carbon Delivery Plan, and the NHS Net Zero Building Standard, which applies to all investments in new buildings and upgrades to existing facilities that are subject to HM Treasury business case approval processes.

Whether NICE (a) is reviewing and (b) plans to review available vaccines for Urinary Tract Infection for use in the UK.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is not currently reviewing vaccines for urinary tract infections.Prophylactic vaccinations are considered by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. However, therapeutic vaccinations, for example, for cancer or another condition, are considered by NICE.

What steps his Department is taking to support professional training for GPs in the use of integrated clinical decision tools to better identify (a) vague or (b) non-specific symptoms of less survivable cancers.

General practitioners (GPs) are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge remains up-to-date and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development.All United Kingdom registered doctors are also expected to meet the professional standards set by the General Medical Council (GMC). In 2012, the GMC introduced revalidation, which supports doctors in regularly reflecting on how they can develop or improve their practice.The training curricula for postgraduate trainee doctors is set by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), and has to meet the standards set by the GMC. The RCGP provides a number of resources on cancer prevention, diagnosis, and care for GPs, relevant for the primary care setting.Improving diagnosis rates and access to treatment are key priorities for the Government for all cancer types, including rare and less common cancers.We are improving public awareness of cancer signs and symptoms, streamlining referral routes, and increasing the availability of diagnostic capacity through the roll-out of more community diagnostic centres. We are also investing an additional £889 million in GPs to reinforce the front door of the National Health Service, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.2 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade.We are committed to ensuring that GPs have the right training and systems to identify cancer. Use of specific clinical decision support tools are agreed at a local level.The recently announced National Cancer Plan, which will complement the 10-Year Health Plan and support delivery of the Government’s Health Mission, will set out further actions to improve diagnosis, including for rare and less common cancers. The plan will also provide further details on how we will ensure patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, ultimately bringing this country’s cancer survival rates back up to the standards of the best in the world.

What the membership is of the Patient Voice Panel as a part of the Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce; and what meetings it has held in the last 12 months.

The Government is committed to including the voices of young cancer patients in the work of the taskforce and the National Cancer Plan. That’s why the Department has worked with taskforce members to assemble a Patient Experience Panel of people with lived experience of cancer. The panel is made up of a diverse group, including parents of children with cancer, young adults who were diagnosed with cancer as teenagers, and those who were diagnosed as children.The panel has met three times so far, and will continue to feed directly into the work of the taskforce.

Whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of implementing awareness campaigns on the (a) signs and (b) symptoms of cancer in (i) teenagers and (ii) young adults.

NHS England and other National Health Service organisations, nationally and locally, publish information on the signs and symptoms of many different types of cancer, including those that are most common in teenagers and young adults. Further information on cancer signs and symptoms is available at the following link:www.nhs.uk/conditions/cancer/NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address the barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms as well as encouraging body awareness to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point.On 4 February 2025, the Department relaunched the Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce to identify tangible ways to improve outcomes and experiences for young cancer patients. The work of the taskforce is ongoing, and officials are exploring opportunities for improvement across a range of areas, including detection and diagnosis, genomic testing and treatment, research and innovation, and patient experience. The taskforce will also ensure that the unique needs of children and young people, including teenagers and young adults with cancer, are carefully considered as part of the National Cancer Plan.For these reasons, the Department has not made a formal specific assessment of the potential merits of implementing awareness campaigns on the signs and symptoms of cancer in teenagers and young adults.

Pursuant to the Answer of 25 March 2025 to Question 38918 on Cancer: Young People, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of collating England-wide data on the participation of young adults in cancer clinical trials led by the National Institute of Health Research and funded by his Department.

The National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) does collect data on participation in clinical trials through NIHR funded research infrastructure, including the participation of young adults. The Department reports on this data where it is appropriate to do so.This data provides insights into the volume and demographics of participants, the types of studies being conducted, and the levels of engagement across different regions and specialties. This includes information gathered via the Research Delivery Network, Biomedical Research Centres, and other NIHR-supported facilities.

Pursuant to the Answer of 25 March 2025 to Question 38918 on Cancer: Young People, what steps (a) his Department and (b) the National Institute for Health and Care Research has taken to (i) enrol 50 per cent of young people with cancer into clinical trials by March 2025 and (ii) publish data on this target.

To support the delivery of this ambition, the Department, through NHS England, has put in place new national service specifications, covering both Principal Treatment Centre and associated Teenage and Young Adult (TYA) Designated Hospital provision, and has established networks to oversee pathways of care, coordinate clinical trial access, and develop local strategies to increase clinical trial recruitment. Alongside this, NHS England has also introduced a metric to monitor trial participation within the TYA Cancer Quality Dashboard. The Department-funded National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funds research and research infrastructure, which supports patients and the public to participate in high-quality research, including clinical research for teenagers and young adults with cancer. The Department does not hold data on the overall percentage of children and young people with cancer that are enrolled into clinical trials nationwide, but does collect data on general participation through NIHR funded research infrastructure. The Department reports on this data where it is appropriate to do so.

If his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of an (a) centralised and (b) nationwide case-finding programme to identify people at high risk of (i) developing and (ii) inheriting less survivable cancers.

The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) has committed to developing a National Inherited Cancer Predisposition Register (NICPR) as part of its 2024 to 2027 strategy, building on the work to establish the National Lynch Registry. The NICPR will launch on 30 June, and will look at a wider range of cancers for which there is an increased inherited risk, including for less survivable cancers. It will identify high-risk individuals who are eligible for targeted screening and surveillance, and will act as an electronic referral route into national screening programmes where these exist, for instance Lynch syndrome and bowel screening.The NICPR is also a key commitment in the Rare Disease Action Plan for England, with NDRS in NHS England as the lead delivery partner, further highlighting its relevance to improving care for people with rare inherited cancer risk.NHS England is also working on case-finding approaches for less survivable cancers, where the evidence suggests this is appropriate. It is currently developing a public-facing Family History Checker, which enables people and their families affected by pancreatic cancer to self-assess if they may inherit risk. Individuals identified as being at risk are referred directly to the European Registry of Hereditary Pancreatic Diseases research trial, which aims to understand inherited conditions of the pancreas. Referrals to the trial can be made by any healthcare professional across all health sectors or by individuals via self-referral, contributing to a centralised approach to case-finding.As part of our National Cancer Plan, we have been working with members of the Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce, a group of charities focusing on cancers with poor survival rates, to identify how we can improve diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for less survivable cancers.

What steps the NHS plans to take to improve (a) awareness and (b) training for (i) GPs and (ii) frontline healthcare professionals to help (A) recognise and (B) refer suspected cases of cancer in teenagers and young adults.

The Department is committed to getting the National Health Service diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster to improve survival rates, including for children and young people. To achieve this, the NHS has delivered an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week as the first step to ensuring early diagnosis and faster treatment.General practitioners (GPs) are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge remains up-to-date and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development.All registered doctors in the United Kingdom are also expected to meet the professional standards set by the General Medical Council (GMC). In 2012, the GMC introduced revalidation, which supports doctors in regularly reflecting on how they can develop or improve their practice.The training curricula for postgraduate trainee doctors is set by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and has to meet the standards set by the GMC. The RCGP provides several resources on cancer prevention, diagnosis, and care for GPs, relevant for the primary care setting.On 4 February 2025, the Department relaunched the Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce to identify tangible ways to improve outcomes and experiences for children and young people with cancer. The taskforce is exploring opportunities for improvement across genomic testing and treatment, research and innovation, patient experience, and early detection and diagnosis.The forthcoming National Cancer Plan will include further details on improving outcomes for cancer patients, including for children and young people with cancer, and will highlight how the Department will support the NHS to improve diagnosis rates for people in all parts of England.

When he plans to respond to Question 51208, tabled by the hon. Member for Wokingham on 9 May 2025.

I refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave on 2 June 2025 to Questions 51207, 51208 and 51210.

When he plans to respond to Question 51210, tabled by the hon. Member for Wokingham on 9 May 2025.

I refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave on 2 June 2025 to Questions 51207, 51208 and 51210.