Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-10-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to introduce earlier forms of diagnosis of pancreatic cancer on the NHS.

Jane Ellison

The independent cancer taskforce published its report Achieving World-Class Cancer Outcomes: A Strategy for England 2015-2020 in July 2015, which recognised early diagnosis as a key priority for improving cancer outcomes. Recommendation 21 in particular refers to Wave 2 of the Accelerate, Coordinate, Evaluate (ACE) programme, which specifically aims to speed up and improve diagnosis of cancers with non-specific but concerning symptoms through the use of a multidisciplinary diagnostic centre.

NHS England is working with partners across the health system to consider how best to take the recommendations of the report forward.