Postcode lottery leaves 3.4m with 'cruel commute' for radiotherapy

SOME 3.4 million people are living beyond the recommended travel time for radiotherapy treatment.

- Martyn Brown

Experts say patients should be treated without having to travel more than 45 minutes but analysis shows many face far longer trips due to a shortage of cancer centres.

In the list of top 10 worst constituencies, no one in Barrow and Furness and the Isle of Wight lives in the recommended time.

In North West Norfolk only 0.4 per cent are in the 45-minute zone and a mere 4.7 per cent in North Devon.

Keighley is fifth on 5.6 per cent, followed by Chelmsford (7.3 per cent), Skipton and Ripon (7.8), Copeland (9.1), York Central (18.5) and Shipley (20.3).

In one out of every 20 constituencies at least half live too far from a cancer centre, analysis of postcodes in England by cancer charity Radiotherapy UK found.

Those in rural areas and with poor transport links struggle the most.

Campaigners warn that too many patients face a long cruel "cancer commute" or risk going without.