This World Cancer Day has been marked by the publication of the NHS National Cancer Plan. This is a significant milestone for the cancer community and a much-needed step forward for cancer care across the country.
The National Cancer Plan has been built around the 10 Year Health Plan launched last year. It contains ambitious survival targets, a goal to bring England in line with other countries in terms of diagnosis and cancer outcomes, plans to improve treatment, and an overall goal to support people to live well with and after cancer.
In our response to the National Cancer Plan call for evidence we put forward a number of recommendations that we, and our wider community, felt the plan needed to include. We are pleased to see that many of these recommendations and priorities are reflected in the plan, including:
- Funding and support for Cancer Alliances to work with local communities and primary care providers to improve early diagnosis rates, including for rarer cancers. This will focus on increasing healthcare professional awareness of cancer symptoms and supporting GPs to spot signs of cancer early.
- Initiatives to reduce emergency presentation diagnoses, especially in blood and brain cancers.
- A clinical trials accelerator to help rare cancer patients receive faster access to life-changing clinical trials. Initially patients will be able to search for trials on the clinical research database within the NHS app and ask to be contacted. In time patients will be able to sign up to automatically be offered the opportunity to receive details of clinical trials that might benefit them.
- Improvements to prehabilitation, rehabilitation and holistic care across all cancers.
We will be watching the rollout of the plan with interest, and our focus now is to make sure that the unique needs of the lymphoma community are fully reflected as the plan is put into action.
“We are delighted that, on World Cancer Day, the NHS has published the National Cancer Plan, which shows real promise for the future of cancer treatment and care” says Ropinder Gill, Chief Executive at Lymphoma Action. “World Cancer Day aims to reflect the unique needs of people living with cancer, that extend beyond their physical diagnosis. With this in mind, we are ready to offer our expertise and in-depth understanding of the patient experience of lymphoma to help the NHS make a success of the plan, and drive improvements in treatment and care for everyone affected by this type of blood cancer.”
We'll be publishing further updates and information on the National Cancer Plan later this year.