Ministers in denial ‘over magnitude of cancer crisis’
THE UK is facing the “biggest cancer crisis in living memory”, MPS will be told this week.
Leading oncologist Prof Pat Price will tell the health select committee that the Government is “failing to acknowledge the magnitude of the cancer backlog”.
Tens of thousands of cancer patients have been left untreated or undiagnosed through lack of access to healthcare or screening due to Covid restrictions.
This could amount to as many as 60,000 lost life years, she will say.
Her presentation comes ahead of a report to be released by King’s College London which shows over the past 18 months there have been four million fewer routine cancer referrals.
Speaking on behalf of the campaign Catch Upwith Cancer, Prof Price said: “The Government and NHS officials are denying the scale of the backlog.
“The Government’s own data showed 40,000 less new cancer patients in the system in the first eight months of the pandemic alone.”
She said metrics used to measure the backlog hide the scale of the problem as they do not include patients missing from the system following lockdowns.
“It only tells you how many are waiting in the system and not the missing ‘undiagnosed patients’ or those who have had their first treatment but experienced further delays.”
She will highlight research showing cancer services have a worrying variation across the UK, with some running at less than 80 per cent of capacity. Even if services could run at 105 per cent of pre-covid levels it would still take 10 years to catch up with demand.
She said: “Pre-covid UK cancer services were at the bottom of the league tables among comparable high-income countries. Setting our ambitions at being the worst again is not OK.WHY is this not urgent enough for the Government?
“This is the biggest cancer crisis in living memory and it doesn’t have to be this way.”
Tim Farron MP, chair of the All-party Parliamentary Group for Radiotherapy, said: “It feels like ministers and
NHS leaders hear our words but still haven’t grasped the magnitude of the crisis.
“Without ring-fenced investment in cancer treatment, services won’t reach the ‘super-normal’ levels required, we’ll never clear the backlog and, sadly, the cancer crisis will be measured in unnecessary deaths,” he said.