Macmillan Cancer Support estimates that cancer affects over three million people in the UK
A new policy review produced by cancer doctors and experts from across the UK, including King’s College London (KCL), has revealed the ten biggest cancer challenges facing the new UK government.
Published in the Lancet Oncology, the review highlights the time-critical issues impacting the delivery of cancer care services by the NHS, which should be urgently addressed via a comprehensive national cancer control plan.
It is estimated that there are more than three million people living in the UK with cancer, according to Macmillan Cancer Support, with breast cancer being the most prevalent, accounting for more than 55,000 people.
The authors said that the NHS in the UK is behind other countries and, if not prioritised, could add additional strain to the healthcare system, widen social inequality and weaken economic recovery.
The review highlighted several ongoing failures in reducing cancer survival inequalities, warned of treatment delays, and warned that novel solutions such as new diagnostic tests have been identified as resolutions to the cancer crisis; however, the paper makes clear that “none address the fundamental issues of cancer as a systems problem”.
To tackle these challenges, experts established several recommendations to improve the survival, quality of life and experience of cancer patients in the UK.
The policy recommendations include tackling social inequalities in access and outcomes of cancer by creating an NHS task force to inform policy solutions; identifying spare capacity via modelling, creating governance for the use of regional capacity, and testing operational interventions to speed up processes such as waiting time to reduce the cancer backlog; expanding national audits across the UK; and researching how hospitals and professionals can drive change to tackle variation in cancer quality across the NHS.
Professional Richard Sullivan, Institute of Cancer Policy, commented: “A new national cancer control plan will need to take a whole-system approach, integrating solutions for critical areas such as workforce, service quality and societal equity.”

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