Cancer will affect virtually all of it. The first time I saw it in all its awfulness was with my mother in law back in the 80s. By the time it had been discovered, she had no chance. And even with pretty good home care and wonderful support from Macmillan nurses, it was brutal for all of us.
This week the Lib Dems have unveiled a plan to boost Cancer care in the UK, which includes:
Make the UK a world leader in cancer research by:
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Passing a Cancer Survival Research Act that would require the Government to coordinate and ensure funding for research into the cancers with the lowest survival rates, including lung, liver, brain and pancreatic cancer.
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Saving the National Cancer Research Institute. The Government is presiding over the closure of the National Cancer Research Institute, which was established in 2001 and plays a vital role in coordinating cancer research, due to uncertainty over research funding. Its closure has been described by one oncology professor as like “turning off air traffic control and hoping the planes will be fine”.
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Halving the time for new treatments to reach patients. It takes an average of 11 months for a new medicine or medical technology to be approved and available to patients in England, compared to just 4 months in Germany. We will expand the MHRA’s capacity to speed up that process.
Boost treatment capacity to ensure survival rates are in line with the best in the world by:
- Introducing a two-month cancer treatment guarantee: a new target for 100% of patients to start treatment for cancer within 62 days from urgent referral, with this right written into law. Currently this is only a government pledge, and 36% of patients wait longer than 62 days.
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Boosting access to radiotherapy: replace ageing radiotherapy machines and increase their number, as well as widening access so that no one has to travel too far for treatment.
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Improving support for patients and their families: recruit more cancer nurses so that every patient has a dedicated specialist supporting them throughout their treatment. Ensure patients and their families are given information about charities, patient support groups and financial support at every key stage: referral, diagnosis and starting treatment.
This is particularly timely given today’s shocking research showing that Cancer survival rates in the UK are 10-15 years behind similar countries.
Ed Davey said:
Cancer is a devastating disease and I know from my own personal experience after losing both my parents to it, the tragic impacts that it can have. We must go further and faster to spare more families the intense pain and suffering that cancer can cause in the coming years.
That is why the Liberal Democrats have put bringing UK cancer survival rates in line with the best in the world at the heart of our priorities. This needs to be done on two fronts. We must reduce the unacceptably long delays for cancer treatment and make the UK a world leader in research to tackle this awful disease.
This is a challenge that I know our great country can rise to. By working together, through our fantastic NHS to our cutting-edge scientists, we can rectify this horrific situation and take the UK to the top of the global league table for cancer survival rates.
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4 Comments
Thanks for a coherent, benign policy!
Might we also have a “pay-for-it” plan, capital and recurrent?
Here are some suggestions:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/02/28/unless-we-put-the-uks-wealth-to-work-for-social-purposes-we-really-are-in-very-deep-trouble/
Mostly these proposals seem well thought out and sensible. A good piece of work. However, passing new laws to guarantee treatment and force the Government to research only certain specific cancers is a terrible, gimmicky, idea. We don’t need laws: If we want the Government to fund certain research, then just offer in our manifesto to do that. No need to waste Parliamentary time passing an inflexible law that then constrains Government decisions far into the future when circumstances might well be different.
Ditto a law governing waiting times for treatment. There are two scenarios: Either the NHS has sufficient resources to treat everyone within 62 days – in which case the proposed law would be superfluous, since Doctors are on the whole always going to be seeking the best outcomes anyway. Or the NHS doesn’t have sufficient resources, in which case the law would place impossible demands on doctors, and prevent them from using their judgement to manage limited resources in the best possible way. Having a target to improve treatment is great. But an inflexible law that constrains decisions about where to prioritise resources is really not a good idea.
Just to note that most of these proposals are England-only
It’s good to see that we are producing plans to tackle the under-investment in the treatment of Cancer as a result of Tory austerity measures which has resulted in the UK being years behind other similar developed countries.
However it would be even better if we took a leaf out of Jacinda Ardern’s leadership of New Zealand when in 2019 the Government she led put Health and Wellbeing front and centre by introducing a Wellbeing Budget working on the premise of a healthy nation produces a well founded economy. we could also incorporate the work of Michael Marmot’s “Build Back Fairer: The COVID-19 Marmot Review https://bitly.ws/3eBza which highlights 6 objectives to tackle health inequalities across the UK.