Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, If he will make an assessment of the potential impact of excluding measures of grading in brain tumour diagnosis on his targets for cancer diagnosis set out in the NHS Long Term Plan.

The target for earlier cancer diagnosis is to diagnose more cancers at stages 1 and 2, because when cancer is diagnosed earlier, there are more potential treatment options and the likelihood of successful treatment is higher. The grading of brain tumours is not directly comparable to the staging of cancers because brain tumours at grade 1 and grade 2 are not considered cancerous. Only brain tumours at grades 3 and 4 are classed as cancerous.

The National Cancer Plan will have patients at its heart and will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and diagnosis to treatment and aftercare. It will seek to improve every aspect of cancer care to improve the experience and outcomes for people with cancer. Our goal is to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer over the next ten years.