Website of the Department of Health

Foreword

In September 2000 we said we were making cancer a priority. The situation was far from ideal and many cancer patients were not receiving the treatment and care they should have been. In the NHS Cancer Plan we set out a ten-year national strategy to reorganise, standardise and rejuvenate cancer services so that we compare with the best in Europe.

We have made significant progress towards those objectives. As the latest figures show deaths have fallen by more than 12% in just six years. Last year, in our three year progress report, Maintaining the Momentum, we set out the evidence to show how services have improved and patients are being diagnosed, treated and cared for faster and better.

Since the publication of the three-year progress report on cancer we have published the NHS Improvement Plan. The NHS has undergone a period of intense change over the last seven years. One of the key principles of this change is improving the health of the population as a whole, targeting inequalities and promoting prevention as well as cure.

The Public Health White Paper, being published later this year, will tackle head on many of the behaviours that dramatically increase people's risk of cancer. It will talk about how the NHS can enable people to lead healthier lives by giving them the information and support they need to change their behaviour. In the long term the best and most efficient way of beating cancer, both for individuals and in terms of NHS resources, has to be prevention.

The other key principle of this ongoing programme of change is reshaping the health services around the needs and aspirations of patients. This begins with giving people the best chance of recovery by detecting cancer early.

The NHS breast and cervical screening programmes are two of our biggest success stories. According to a study by the British Association of Surgical Oncologists published in May this year, over 95% of women who have had invasive breast cancer detected by screening are alive five years later. In the same month, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organisation, concluded that organised and quality controlled cervical screening, such as we have in this country, can achieve an 80% reduction in deaths from cervical cancer.

Because bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer I am announcing that from April 2006 we will begin a phased roll out of a National Bowel Cancer Screening Programme. Research has shown that the Faecal Occult Blood test (FOBt) method of screening can reduce mortality from bowel cancer, in the screening age group, by around 15% in men and women.

Speeding up the diagnosis and treatment of cancer is essential. This will be one of our primary focuses in the coming months. There are two extremely challenging waiting times targets for December 2005 which we are determined to meet.

Mortality rates for all cancers continue to fall. We are ahead of the trajectory to achieve the target of a 20% reduction in the mortality rate from cancer in people under 75 by 2010. Within this mortality rates for two of the biggest killers, breast cancer in women and lung cancer in men, are falling more quickly in this country than anywhere else in the world.

We know we can't rest on our laurels and assume the job is done. Much of the progress which has been made so far is thanks to the staff providing cancer services. They have readily and effectively examined the way they provide these services and made improvements too numerous to mention. If this progress is to continue then cancer must remain both a national and a local priority.

John Reid
Secretary of State for Health

• Download The NHS cancer plan and the new NHS (PDF, 174K)
• The NHS Improvement Plan : Putting people at the heart of public services
• National Standards, Local Action