To ask the Minister of Health to detail any consideration his Department has given to shortening the diagnostic pathway for ovarian cancer.

My Department’s has established a Regional Health and Social Care (HSC) Gynaecology Services Forum to oversee the implementation of service improvement recommendations from the “Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) Gynaecology Report for Northern Ireland," published in January 2024. GIRFT recommendations include streamlining patient pathways to improve diagnostic pathway and efficiency in patient care. This incudes development of pathways that use a range of skills mix of nursing and allied health professionals to assist with triage and diagnostic procedures including colposcopy and hysteroscopy. This should improve timescales in diagnosis for all gynaecological cancers including ovarian cancer.

All Trusts adhere to NICE guidelines when triaging suspected cancer referrals and detecting ovarian cancer, (NICE CG122: Ovarian cancer: recognition and initial management). To improve ovarian cancer survival, ensuring patients reach diagnostic pathways as early as possible is as important as the diagnostic pathways themselves. The Northern Ireland Cancer Network (NICaN) Gynaecology Clinical Reference Group (CRG) is currently working to update the Primary Care Guidance for Suspected Cancers for red flag gynaecological referral. This guidance will reinforce the need for GPs to test patients presenting with key ovarian cancer symptoms, using the CA125 blood test (to measure raised levels of a protein that can be elevated in women with ovarian or fallopian tube cancer) to refer them appropriately onto the suspect cancer red flag pathway.