Urgent call for cancer overhaul as deaths soar

A LEADING cancer specialist has today written to the Health Secretary, calling for an urgent overhaul of services to prevent soaring avoidable deaths from the disease.

- By Lucy Johnston SOCIAL AFFAIRS EDITOR

A damning new report found there were 200,000 avoidable cancer deaths in the UK over the past decade due to poor care.

The letter warns that without immediate action cancer deaths in the UK will rise to 200,000 per year by 2040.

Data from the OECD – a body comprising the 38 richest nations – Cancer Research UK and the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank shows the UK has one of the worst cancer survival rates of developed countries. The stark figures, gathered in a special report for Health Secretary Wes Streeting, reveal that if the UK had matched the average European cancer survival rate, 180,000 lives could have been saved since 2010.

Gordon Wishart, Professor of Cancer Surgery at Anglia Ruskin School of Medicine, writes that “delayed diagnosis, poor access to treatment, and a chronic lack of NHS resources” has left the UK with the worst cancer survival in the G7.