Policy paper

2010 to 2015 government policy: cancer research and treatment

Updated 8 May 2015

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Applies to England

• Publication for Northern Ireland
• Publication for Scotland
• Publication for Wales

This is a copy of a document that stated a policy of the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government. The previous URL of this page was https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/helping-more-people-survive-cancer. Current policies can be found at the GOV.UK policies list.

Issue

Every year, over 250,000 people in England are diagnosed with cancer, and around 130,000 die as a result of the disease. Annual NHS costs for cancer services are £5 billion, but the cost to society as a whole – including costs for loss of productivity – is £18.3 billion. More people are surviving cancer. But our survival rates are still worse than those for other countries that are as wealthy as us.

Actions

By 2014, we want to match the average cancer survival rate in Europe and to save an extra 5,000 lives every year.

Changing lifestyles to reduce the risk of cancer

About a third of cancers are caused by smoking, diet, alcohol and obesity. To help people reduce people’s risk of getting cancer, we have national plans for:

• reducing smoking
• reducing obesity and improving diet
• reducing harmful drinking

We also encourage:

• people to be careful in the sun to avoid skin cancer
• young women to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV) to prevent cervical cancer

Making sure people know the signs of cancer

We can help people get an early diagnosis by making sure they know the signs of cancer and when to speak to their GP.

Our Be Clear on Cancer campaign makes people aware of the signs of cancer. In 2013, we will run national and regional campaigns for bowel, kidney, bladder, breast and ovarian cancer. We will also run a campaign to inform people about the signs of rarer types of cancer.

Getting an earlier diagnosis through screening

By running screening programmes, we have the chance to get an earlier diagnosis so that treatment is more likely to work. We are checking more people for cancer and improving screening by: • testing women for human papillomavirus (HPV) if they have mild or borderline results from their cervical screening • testing women for HPV who have been treated for cervical abnormalities to see if they are cured • testing the usefulness of checking cervical samples for HPV first and sending to the lab only those that are HPV positive extending breast cancer screening to women aged 47 to 49 and 71 to 73 • extending bowel cancer screening to women and men aged 70 to 75 – since the screening programme began in 2006, we have detected over 15,000 cancers • spending £60 million on testing the Bowel Scope Screening Programme (which uses a camera to look for signs of cancer inside people’s bowels) and expanding it across the country by 2016 to save 3,000 lives a year

Improving treatment

We want to make sure that all patients get the best possible treatment. We are improving the use of radiotherapy by:

• investing £23 million to improve access to Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) – 35% of radical radiotherapy treatments are now delivered using more precise IMRT compared to 5% in 2010
• spending £250 million on developing proton beam therapy (a form of radiotherapy that targets cancer cells more effectively) in The Christie Hospital in Manchester and University College London Hospital – the first facility is due to become operational in 2018
• making up to £6 million available over the next 5 years to fund the NHS treatment costs of six new Cancer Research UK clinical trials for stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR)

After initially making an additional £50 million available to the NHS in the financial year 2010 to 2011, the Cancer Drugs Fund was launched on 1 April 2011. £600 million was made available to the Fund over the 3 years to 2013 to 2014 to help patients access the cancer drugs recommended by their clinician. In September 2013, we announced that a further £400 million would be made available to extend the Fund to the end of March 2016, and in August 2014, we announced that the size of Fund would be increased to £280 million in both 2014 to 2015 and 2015 to 2016.

NHS England is responsible for the operation of the Fund and regularly publishes information on the number of people who have benefitted from it.

Improving access to cancer services

We are always looking for new ways to give people equal access to cancer services and to improve treatment for those parts of the population that have unusually high cancer rates.

For example, sometimes older people don’t get the same standard of treatment as younger people, so we have:

• tested whether changing the way we assess older people for cancer will improve their access to treatment and their experience of it
• tested how we can support older cancer patients in the community after their treatment
• published the results of these tests in our Cancer Services Coming of Age report and come up with specific recommendations for improving cancer diagnosis and treatment for old people

Helping survivors to live more comfortably

We want cancer survivors to have a good quality of life, and we are reviewing how we can provide better, more personal support which won’t cost too much money.

Background

In 2011, we published ‘Improving Outcomes: a strategy for cancer’, which sets out how we will raise awareness of the symptoms of cancer and invest £750 million over 5 years to support early diagnosis and improve access to testing and treatment.

Every year we publish an annual report to describe our progress:

• 4th annual report
• 3rd annual report
• 2nd annual report
• 1st annual report

Who we work with

Government will always have an important part to play in helping people live with and survive cancer. But we also work with:

• Public Health England, to help people live healthier lifestyles, prevent cancer, raise awareness of the symptoms of cancer and expand cancer screening
• NHS England, to provide the best NHS testing, diagnosis and treatment services
• cancer charities such as Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support, to raise awareness, campaign for change and support people affected by cancer
• academic institutions to carry out cancer research
• bioscience companies to develop new tests and treatment for cancer
• hospices to support people who are near the end of their life
• individuals who are living, or have lived, with cancer, to include their views in our future plans