Twenty-fourth report of Session 2010-11 : Documents considered by the Committee on 30 March 2011, including the following recommendations for debate, the CAP towards 2020; financial services; trafficking in human beings; European contract law, report, tog

Forty-fourth report of Session 2010-12 : Documents considered by the Committee on 26 October 2011, report, together with formal Minutes

On cover and title page: House, committees of the whole House, general committees and select committees

Twenty-ninth report of Session 2010-12 : Documents considered by the Committee on 18 May 2011, including the following recommendations for debate, Roadmap on victims' rights in the EU, report, together with formal Minutes

This report examines the Department of Health's and the NHS's performance in delivering cancer services; improving information on activity, cost and outcomes of cancer services; and how the Department intends to deliver cost-effective cancer services in the new NHS. The NHS spent £6.3 billion on cancer services in 2008-09. Tackling Cancer has been a priority for the Department since its ten year NHS Cancer Plan was published in 2000. In 2007 the Department published its five year Cancer Reform Strategy (the Strategy) to deliver improved patient outcomes. The NHS has made significant progress in delivering important aspects of cancer services, with falling mortality rates and consistent achievement of the cancer waiting times targets. However, early diagnosis does not happen often enough. And the gap in survival rates between England and the best European countries has not been closed. There remain wide, unexplained variations in the performance of cancer services and in the types of treatment available across the country; and significant gaps in information about important aspects of cancer services, in particular information on chemotherapy, on follow-up treatment, and on the stage that a patient's cancer has reached at the time of diagnosis. The Department cannot yet measure the impact of the Strategy on key outcomes, such as survival rates, and does not know if cancer services are being commissioned cost-effectively, due to poor data on costs and because outcomes data are not sufficiently timely. The Department must ensure the collection of high quality, comprehensive and timely data.

Over the next ten years, development aid in the form of grants should be replaced for lower middle income countries. DFID should continue to channel some of its finance through multilaterals, making greater use of their specialist skills and expertise rather than replicating these within its own bilateral programmes. DFID should also establish a financial instrument team, prepare a development finance strategy and publish a Development Finance White Paper during 2014. This strategy should include consideration of whether to establish a UK development bank. The overwhelming drive in UK aid should continue to focus on lifting people out of poverty and meeting post-2015 development objectives. The UK should continue to fund the development and delivery of key services to the very poorest people in low income countries through a system of grants. We should also continue to channel 0.7 % of GNI into development cooperation. But, to support structural transformation in lower middle income countries a significant proportion of future UK development finance should also be delivered via a system of concessional loans and other financial instruments