On how many occasions has the Minister approached representatives of the UK Government to coordinate support for cancer research across the UK?
My officials engage on a frequent and longstanding basis with research and development colleagues from the Department of Health and Social Care in England, as well as colleagues from equivalent divisions in Scotland and Northern Ireland, to ensure that research activity in relation to cancer, and other research areas, is coordinated across the UK.
In particular, this engagement has opened up large National Institute for Health and Social Care Research (NIHR, England) programmes and funding streams to researchers across the UK, and has enabled us to address procedural and governance issues to support UK-wide patient recruitment to research studies running across the borders of the four UK nations.
The latter is particularly important in relation to rare cancers and other rare diseases, where patient numbers are low and researchers need to recruit across borders to ensure that meaningful research can take place.