‘UK cancer survival rates lag behind rest of EU’

According to the study by Macmillan Cancer Support, chances of surviving common cancers in the UK including breast cancer, bowel cancer, stomach cancer and lung cancer, lag at least one decade behind many comparable European countries.

The new analysis has revealed that 81 per cent of British women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2005 and 2009 were alive five years later. But Sweden, France and Italy all achieved survival rates of between 83 and 84 per cent back in the 1990s, with latest survival rates at between 86 and 87 per cent.

For lung cancer, which only 10% of British patients survived in the 2000s, survival rate in Austria was 14% in the 1990s. A decade later, 18% of patients diagnosed with lung cancer in Austria survived – almost twice the rate in the UK.

‘Shameful’ revelation

Macmillan Cancer Support has said it is “shameful” that “people were dying needlessly” because of cancer in Britain as many other European countries were doing better in the 1990s than the UK has managed recently.

“Because UK cancer survival rates are lagging so far behind the rest of Europe, people are dying needlessly. Frankly, this is shameful. If countries like Sweden, France, Finland and Austria can achieve these rates, then the UK can and should, bridge the gap,” the Guardian quoted Lynda Thomas, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support as saying.

Late diagnosis

The charity has blamed Britain's poor record for diagnosing cancer early as one of the key failings.

More than one in five cases of cancer in the UK is only diagnosed when a patient arrives at Accident & Emergency, with acute symptoms.

“What is crucial in getting down the death from cancer is a very rapid treatment that once the symptoms, the possible symptoms are detected at the general practitioner level, then the patient has to get to hospital for testing quite quickly and there is a supposed target for getting people there within 2 weeks. Some countries are doing better in that,” Professor Jonathan Rosenhead told Press TV on Tuesday.

Protracted waiting time

Official figures have already revealed that the NHS in England missed its target to treat more than 20,000 people with urgent cancer referrals for the whole of 2014.

Figures published back in February showed that thousands of British patients waited over two months for treatment last year.

The NHS should start treating 85% percent of the patients within 62 days of a GP referral.

However, between October and December, only 83.8% were treated within time. It was the fourth quarter the NHS missed the target.

Austerity pressure

Meanwhile,  Rosenhead slammed government spending cuts and blamed the poor cancer survivals on policies including the spending cuts to the health sector.

“What is happening is that as the money available to health services is being squeezed by the government now, those waiting times [for the patients] to be tested are going up. They can grow to a 7 years high. So the explanation to why cancer rates and death are not good is because the government is not doing what is necessary to get it done,” Rosenhead concluded.

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