Minister for Public Health (): The Department of Health
and Social Care will soon publish the National Cancer Plan. While
more people survive cancer than ever before progress has slowed
over the last decade and England remains behind other comparable
countries with working class communities being failed most of
all. This Plan will change that.
The provision of cancer services varies significantly across the
country. We will work to end the variation and ensure that access
to the best cancer diagnosis, treatment and care is possible for
everyone.
The National Cancer Plan will include a set of policies
specifically focused on tackling geographic inequalities in
cancer care, including:
- More cancer care medical training places will be allocated to
rural and coastal areas, particularly in areas where there are
high numbers of vacancies, or areas with poor performance
- Improved scrutiny and support of cancer services, including
increased data transparency on the quality of care and
performance to drive up standards across the country. Where
people live should not determine whether they get high-quality
treatment when they need it.
- Patients to get access to cutting-edge early cancer detection
technologies regardless of where they live, as NICE begins to
assess technology as well as medicines, which, if approved, would
be available on the NHS in the same way that already applies to
medicines.
- Cancer Alliances will receive funding and work proactively
with local communities and providers to improve early diagnosis
rates, including for rarer or less survivable cancers. They will
focus on increasing awareness of cancer symptoms, supporting
primary care to spot signs of cancer early, and reducing the gap
in screening uptake between the most and least deprived areas,
with particular efforts to reach ethnic minority and underserved
communities.
Further to this, we know that early diagnosis is crucial for
improving survival for cancer, for all cancers, including bowel
cancer, which is the fourth most common cancer in the UK,
impacting 40,907 people in 2023.
Which is why the National Cancer Plan will include actions to
ensure more bowel cancers are caught at an earlier stage, rolling
out changes to our bowel cancer screening programmes that are
expected to save more than 5000 lives by 2035.
The NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme offers people aged 50 to
74 years old screening every 2 years, Faecal Immunochemical Test
(FIT) kits are sent to people's homes.
The NHS in England is improving this offer by rolling out
increased sensitivity in bowel cancer screening, the programme
will lower the threshold from 120 to 80 ug/g to bring the
sensitivity in line with Scotland and Wales. When this is fully
rolled out from 2028 this is expected to catch cancer at an
earlier stage for over 600 people per year, treating it faster
and saving lives.
Going further, we will roll out letters and invitations onto the
bowel cancer screening programme via the App. This will make it
easier for individuals to access screening programmes, and give
patients control over their health.
The National Cancer Plan, which will be published shortly, will
provide further details of how we will seek to improve early
diagnosis of all cancers, and deliver high-quality cancer care to
everybody, no matter where they live.
