Cancer: Health Services
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, 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.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
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.
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