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Health: Cancer

Answer

On 12 January 2011, we published Improving Outcomes: A Strategy for Cancer. It shows how the Government's reforms will improve outcomes for all cancer patients, including those with ovarian cancer. The strategy sets out an ambition to save an additional 5,000 lives every year by 2014-15 through the earlier diagnosis of cancer and improved access to screening and radiotherapy. We will not be able to deliver on this ambition by focusing solely on the more common cancers, so the National Health Service will need to take action to improve survival rates for less common cancers such as ovarian cancer. To support earlier diagnosis of cancer, the Government have committed over £450 million over the next four years. This money will be used to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer; fund increased general practitioner access to diagnostic tests; and pay for more testing and treatment in secondary care. One of the tests we are increasing access to is non-obstetric ultrasound to support the diagnosis of ovarian cancer. The strategy also sets out our commitment to work with a number of charities focused on rarer cancers to assess what more can be done to encourage appropriate referrals to secondary care and to diagnose rarer cancers earlier. Officials have already met with a number of these charities, including an ovarian cancer charity, with the aim of identifying some of the barriers to early diagnosis and to discuss potential solutions. This will inform our future work in this area. According to the latest data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) the one-year relative survival for ovarian cancer in England was 71.2 per cent in women diagnosed between 2004 and 2008 and followed up to 2009, compared to 70.3 per cent in women diagnosed between 2003 and 2007 and followed up to 2008. For women in England diagnosed and followed over the same two periods the five-year relative survival rate for ovarian cancer was 42.2 per cent compared to 40.8 per cent. The ONS does not publish cancer survival data for the United Kingdom. We are also leading the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership to understand why there are differences in survival rates across a range of counties, and ovarian cancer is one of the four cancers we are looking at as part of the study.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

12336; 731 c116-7WA

Session

2010-12

Subjects

Health services Ovarian cancer

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk