Does the UK really have an effective cancer plan? Revisited.

Abstract

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. Assessment of the NHS cancer plan in EnglandPrevious assessments of progress on cancer in England, following the publication of the Calman-Hine report in 19951 and the NHS cancer plan2 in 2000, have relied largely on measures of structure and process.3,4 These reports have noted good progress, while acknowledging that much remains to be done. In this issue of The Lancet Oncology, Bernard Rachet and colleagues5 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. 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