Pancreatic Cancer: Greater London
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve patient treatment for pancreatic cancer within the North East London NHS Foundation Trust area.
Answered by Ashley Dalton
The Department is working with NHS England to deliver interventions to improve treatment for those with pancreatic cancer across England, including within the North East London NHS Foundation Trust area. As the first step to ensuring faster diagnosis and treatment, the National Health Service is delivering an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week.
Early diagnosis is imperative to improving outcomes for all types of cancer, especially pancreatic cancer due to the non-specific nature of its symptoms. NHS England is providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for those at inherited high-risk to identify lesions before they develop into cancer, creating pathways to support faster referral routes for people with non-specific symptoms, and increasing direct access for general practitioners to diagnostic tests.
On 12 September 2024, the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre published their State of the Nation Report on Pancreatic Cancer. The NHS cancer programme is currently considering how to take forward the initial recommendations of that audit. NHS England is also funding a new audit into pancreatic cancer to increase the consistency of access to treatments, and to stimulate improvements in cancer treatments and outcomes for patients.
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