Wes Streeting may revive the use of a dedicated cancer strategy to tackle the UK’s second biggest killer after experts warned the Conservatives’ scrapping of it was “a disaster” for patients.
The health secretary is considering publishing a new comprehensive plan for England, amid record numbers of people being diagnosed with the disease and NHS cancer services struggling to meet demand.
Previous Labour and Tory government published four cancer-specific action plans between 2000 and 2015 and they helped to bring about improvements in treatment, waiting times and survival.
However, in January last year Steve Barclay, then the health secretary, caused consternation among specialists in the disease and charities such as Cancer Research UK when he announced that plans to boost cancer care were being subsumed into a much wider-ranging major conditions strategy.
They warned that a disease that kills 167,000 people a year in the UK would not get the focus it merits when it was part of a document that also covered heart disease, mental illness, dementia, lung health and joint problems.
But Streeting – himself a kidney cancer survivor – is examining the case for once again publishing a specific plan that would address issues such as long waiting times for care, frontline cancer services’ lack of staff and how best to ensure patients can access emerging treatments.
“We are definitely thinking about it,” said a Whitehall source. “He is genuinely thinking about it and is persuaded that having that focus on one of our biggest killers was successful under the last Labour government.”
Cancer experts are increasingly optimistic that Streeting will commission a new plan.
Prof Mark Lawler, a cancer expert at Queen’s University in Belfast, said: “I am confident, given the overwhelming evidence and the indications from the new government, that the health secretary will reverse the previous government’s inexplicable decision and reintroduce a national cancer plan.”
Prof Pat Price, a leading oncologist and co-founder of the Catch up with Cancer campaign, said: “The new government has inherited a colossal cancer crisis. The decision made by the previous government to scrap the cancer plan was a disaster for cancer patients.
“All the international evidence points to the fact that having a consistent cancer plan leads to better cancer survival.”
Michelle Mitchell, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, said that cancer is “the defining health issue of our time” because one in two Britons will develop it during their lifetime.
“We know that other countries that have long-term cancer strategies with strong political support have seen bigger improvements in survival, and are better at diagnosing it at an earlier stage, when treatment is more likely to be successful.
“Long-term planning is vital to improve outcomes for cancer patients across England, coupled with reform and funding for the NHS.”
The promised major conditions strategy for England was never published despite Barclay lauding it in August 2023 as “a massive opportunity to preserve and protect good health for generations to come”. Sources at the Department of Health and Social Care said it had been “put on ice” and that their focus now was on the 10-year plan to revive the NHS that Labour has promised, which is expected next spring.
A DHSC spokesperson said: “We’re committed to turning the NHS around, including for our cancer patients … we will fight cancer on all fronts, from prevention, to diagnosis, treatment, and research.”
