Cancers must be diagnosed in 3 weeks

PATIENTS who visit their GP with possible signs of cancer will be promised a diagnosis within three weeks under new government proposals, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

The strategy – the first diagnosis target for the NHS – aims to drive up Britain’s poor record in identifying cancer, with survival rates lagging far behind most developed countries.

The policy could be announced as early as this week at the Conservative party conference and will form a central plank of a 10-year NHS plan.

Under the new policy, doctors will be encouraged to “scan first, ask questions later”.

Millions more people will be sent for MRI or CAT scans – via mobile units set up in supermarkets and shopping centres – that will provide most with reassurance.

Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said: “The NHS does an amazing job on the treatment of cancer ... but the area that clearly needs improvement is on diagnosis and ultimately on prevention. We are best in class at cure once diagnosed but we are nowhere near where we want to be on diagnosis and on early diagnosis.”

Research published last year showed Britain’s survival rates were worse than the European average for nine in 10 cancers, with rates for some diseases a decade behind nations such as France and Sweden. This is largely attributed to the fact that one in five patients was not diagnosed until they were admitted to hospital as an emergency case.

While the five-year survival rates for bowel cancer hit 58 per cent on average across Europe, the UK figure was 52 per cent. Britain was second only to Bulgaria for the worst five-year survival rates for lung cancer.

Until now NHS targets have focused on ensuring that patients begin treatment within 62 days of seeing a GP.

This means many patients are left to worry for weeks, or even months, while waiting for a diagnosis, during which time the disease can spread.

There is concern that GPS miss many signs, with a diagnosis not made until the cancer has become advanced and less responsive to treatment.

Last year, a study of patients diagnosed as emergency cases found almost a quarter had previously visited a GP three or more times.

The proposal is part of a strategy that will attempt to tackle Britain’s woefully late diagnosis rates from the major killers. It will focus on breast, bowel, prostate and lung cancers.

Today, Mr Hancock will tell the Tory conference that improving diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients is a vital part of the long-term NHS plan. He will also announce that every seriously ill child and millions of adults with cancer will have their genes sequenced in a five-year plan to develop more personalised medicines.

From next year, all seriously ill children, including those with suspected genetic disorders and cancer, will be offered genome analysis.

A million genomes will be sequenced by the NHS and the UK Biobank within five years. Patients will be asked to consent for their data to be analysed to develop new tests and treatments for cancer and other diseases.

The 10-year plan is due to be published later this year, after the Budget. At the same time a government Green Paper on social care is expected to propose a system of “auto-enrolment” with deductions from all workers’ wages used to fund social care in later life, unless they opt out.

Mr Hancock will also announce an injection of £240 million into the social care system to “free up hospital beds”, creating tens of thousands of “domestic care packages” to try to prevent older people going into hospital unnecessarily. This is in addition to £145million to help NHS trusts prepare for the winter and to improve emergency care.