Assessment of the NHS cancer plan in England

Abstract

Previous assessments of progress on cancer in England, following the publication of the Calman-Hine report in 1995 1 Expert Advisory Group on CancerA policy framework for commissioning cancer services. Department of Health, London1995 Google Scholar and the NHS cancer plan 2 Department of HealthThe NHS cancer plan. Department of Health, London2000 Google Scholar in 2000, have relied largely on measures of structure and process. 3 Department of HealthThe NHS cancer plan: three-year progress report—maintaining the momentum. Department of Health, London2003 Google Scholar , 4 National Audit OfficeThe NHS cancer plan: a progress report. National Audit Office, London2005 Google Scholar These reports have noted good progress, while acknowledging that much remains to be done. In this issue of The Lancet Oncology, Bernard Rachet and colleagues 5 Rachet B Maringe C Nur U et al. Population-based cancer survival trends in England and Wales up to 2007: an assessment of the NHS cancer plan in England. Lancet Oncol. 2009; 10: 351-369 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (150) Google Scholar attempt the first serious assessment of progress on outcomes by comparing trends in survival rates over the past decade in England with those in Wales. Both countries are fortunate to have comprehensive cancer registration; survival comparisons between countries without comprehensive registration, including several in Europe, might be less valid. The findings reported here can therefore be taken as robust. However, interpretation of the findings is more open to question. Does the UK really have an effective cancer plan? Revisited.In this issue of The Lancet Oncology we publish an analysis of the latest data—released on March 20, 2009—collated by the UK's Office for National Statistics for the survival of patients diagnosed with cancer in England and Wales in 2001–06, and followed up to 2007. While analyses of similar data were done in 2003, 3 years after the NHS cancer plan for England was published, they covered a period too close to the implementation of the cancer plan for an effect on cancer survival to be seen. The data presented here thus afford a first opportunity to assess whether or not the cancer plan is actually working. Full-Text PDF Was the NHS cancer plan worth the effort?Huge amounts of money have been thrown at cancer in England by the NHS cancer plan. The exact sum is opaque but the investment in cancer care and indeed the overall NHS has more than tripled over the past decade and now approach European levels.1 So how do we know if it has been worthwhile? The interesting paper by Bernard Rachet and colleagues2 provides a sophisticated analysis of short-term survival changes in 21 cancers in an attempt to see if the money has been well spent. Full-Text PDF Population-based cancer survival trends in England and Wales up to 2007: an assessment of the NHS cancer plan for EnglandThe findings indicate slightly faster improvement in 1-year survival in England than in Wales during 2004–06, whereas the opposite was true during 2001–03. This reversal of survival trends in 2001–03 and 2004–06 between England and Wales is much less obvious for 3-year survival. These different patterns of survival suggest some beneficial effect of the NHS cancer plan for England, although the data do not so far provide a definitive assessment of the effectiveness of the plan. Full-Text PDF Open Access