New report on cancer survival rates in England published
The King’s Fund has published the report How to improve cancer survival, which focuses on England’s relatively poor survival rates in comparison to other countries.
The report notes that cancer survival rates in England are improving overall, but that it is still lagging behind countries such as Canada, Australia, Sweden and Norway. It shows that although England may be closing the gap in breast cancer, the gap has not narrowed for bowel or ovarian cancer, and perhaps most worryingly, has widened slightly for lung cancer.
The report highlights that a range of factors explain this gap, including delays in diagnosis and treatment and treatment variation and co-morbidity, particularly in older people. It found that pensioners tend to be diagnosed with the disease later and are less likely to receive surgery. In fact, the King’s Fund estimate that around 15,000 people over 75 in Britain die prematurely from cancer each year.
The report contains a number of conclusions about how the NHS can improve survival rates. These include:
- NHS and public health need to work together to diagnose more cancers at an earlier stage
- GPs need to use information about their referral rates and use of diagnostics to understand how their performance compares with others
- Reducing variation in access to major surgery for cancer is needed, as is understanding and addressing inequalities in the management of older people with cancer
- High-quality data collection, analysis and research remain important for monitoring progress and identifying which initiatives will be most effective at improving outcomes
- Over the long term, the health system can and should be held to account for cancer survival performance; however, other outcome and process indicators are needed to monitor current performance
The full report can be downloaded here.
