John Baron MP questions Minister on one-year cancer survival rates

MP says underperforming CCGs must take corrective action

Yesterday, during Health Questions in the House of Commons, John Baron MP asked the Minister with responsibility for cancer, Jane Ellison MP, about Government action to ensure the local NHS is held accountable for its one-year cancer survival rates.

In particular, John’s question followed on from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer’s (APPGC) successful campaign to persuade NHS England to include one-year cancer survival statistics in the ‘Delivery Dashboard’, which measures the performance of each individual Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). After an announcement from the Chief Executive of NHS England in December 2014, these statistics have been included in the Delivery Dashboard since April 2015.

In the House of Commons, John asked,

“The APPGC has long campaigned on the importance of holding clinical commissioning groups accountable for their one-year cancer survival rates as a means of promoting earlier diagnosis. That will be part of the delivery dashboard from April onwards. What steps will the Government take to ensure that underperforming CCGs take corrective action?”

The Minister responded that the Government is developing a CCG ‘Scorecard’ to measure CCGs’ performance, and is looking at including one-year cancer survival figures for inclusion in the scorecard.

Afterwards, John said,

“The APPGC is very pleased that, as of April, each CCG is now being held accountable through the Delivery Dashboard for how well it performs at getting patients to at least the one-year point after cancer diagnosis. This should do much to encourage earlier diagnosis, as late diagnosis makes for poor survival rates”.