Cancer expert outlines major challenges facing new UK government | Imperial News

Leading doctors and researchers have warned that major challenges in cancer care in the UK need to be urgently addressed by policy makers.

in review Published in The Lancet OncologyA team of UK cancer experts has outlined 10 urgent challenges affecting the delivery of cancer services by the NHS.

Among the issues highlighted were the continuing failure to reduce inequalities in cancer survival and delays to treatment, with the authors noting that the UK has one of the highest rates of cancer diagnoses following emergency admission to hospital.

Cancer is a complex disease, but addressing the low survival rates starts with a simple idea: make a plan. Professor Pat Price adds: Surgery/Oncology

Moreover, they point out that focusing on “novel solutions” such as new diagnostic tests and technologies “does not address the fundamental problem of cancer as a systems problem.”

They argue that the current focus on new technological solutions to improve cancer diagnosis risks overlooking improvements to fundamental services and care pathways that could have a major impact on patient outcomes, survival and experience.

The paper sets out some policy recommendations that can help understand the complexities of cancer services and the wider health system, promote improved patient survival, quality of life and experience, and highlights the need for a dedicated national cancer care plan.

“Cancer services are in crisis. The tragedy is that it doesn't have to be this way.” Professor Pat PriceHe is visiting professor of oncology at Imperial College London and an author on the study.

“Policymakers often focus too much on one aspect, such as diagnosis, but that alone is not enough,” Professor Price explained. “Facilitating diagnosis will only mean that newly diagnosed patients end up on long waiting lists if they are not treated in a timely manner.”

To address the problem, experts put forward several policy recommendations, including:

• Create a task force to help address deep-rooted social inequities in cancer care access and outcomes.

• Reducing delays and waiting times for cancer care by using modelling and governance to identify and better utilise NHS capacity.

• Reduce variation in the quality of cancer care across the NHS by expanding national audits and studying how audit findings can drive change.

• Cancer research strategies should avoid an excessive focus on biopharmaceuticals and include other important areas such as surgery, radiotherapy and palliative care, as well as other methodological disciplines (e.g. health economics).

Changing cancer treatment

The recommendation is the latest in a series of policy documents aimed at addressing the healthcare shortages and wait times facing cancer patients. 10 Point Plan It will act as a blueprint for a cancer treatment strategy. It aims to address gaps created by the government's proposed integration of the National Cancer Control Plan into the Major Disease Strategy for England and Wales.

Professor Ajay AgarwalProfessor John F. Kennedy, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Current plans to deliver sustained improvements in cancer survival fail to take into account the deep-rooted, complex, systems-level problems in cancer services. We point out that delivering solutions to the major societal and systems pressure points requires going far beyond new devices, drugs and other cancer technologies. Despite good results in many areas of NHS cancer care, there remains wide variation in quality and outcomes.”

Professor Richard Sullivan“Any new national cancer control plan needs to adopt a whole-systems approach, integrating solutions to key areas such as workforce, service quality and social equity,” said researchers from the Cancer Policy Institute at King's College London.

Prof Price added: “Cancer is a complex disease, but the starting point for addressing poor survival rates is simple – have a plan. Let's reverse the previous government's decision to scrap national cancer control plans. All the international evidence shows that countries with national cancer control plans have better survival rates. And we need to ensure that plans are properly resourced, to ensure not only early diagnosis but also on-time treatment.”

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“NHS cancer services and systems – 10 challenges that the UK's cancer control plan must address” by Ajay Aggarwal, Richard Simcock, Pat Price et al. is published in The Lancet Oncology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(24)00345-0

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