UK cancer treatment falls behind other countries
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Two new studies led by UCL researchers have found that UK cancer treatment is significantly behind other countries. The researchers concluded that British cancer patients are treated less frequently with chemotherapy and radiotherapy and face far longer wait times than comparable countries, such as Norway and Australia, where the UK is an estimated 10-15 years behind.
The research was linked to two papers published by The Lancet Oncology, which focused on eight types of cancer: oesophageal, stomach, colon, rectal, liver, pancreatic, lung, and ovarian. The Lancet research found that there was less frequent treatment proportional to diagnosis, long periods between diagnosis and first treatment, and that older patients were less likely to receive any treatment. A similar trend is found in their data on radiotherapy, with UK nations having particularly low records for treating stomach and oesophageal cancer with radiotherapy. It is estimated that around 4 in 10 people with cancer in the UK should receive radiotherapy as part of their treatment. This globally comparative approach to research is still novel, and many questions remain unanswered as to why the UK is struggling to deliver a cancer strategy as effective as other countries.
According to Cancer Research UK, the issue lies not in inferior technology or medicine, but in a lack of long-term governmental planning for cancer treatment and insufficient funding for cancer strategies. Waiting times for treatment are at the core of this issue. Looking at Cancer Research UK’s figures, only 62.8% of patients started treatment within 62 days of an urgent suspected cancer referral in England in August 2023, missing the NHS target of 85%. Had this target been met in August, roughly 3,500 additional patients in England would have received treatment on time. Furthermore, 11.7% of patients who began their treatment in August 2023 waited over 104 days following an urgent referral to start treatment, with the highest number of ‘long-waiters’ suffering from urological cancer (excluding testicular), at 750 patients. These figures are troubling, particularly considering Michelle Mitchell’s, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, warning that “when it comes to treating cancer, timing really matters.” She encourages us to acknowledge the patients behind these statistics and for the UK to learn from countries with superior cancer services. Cancer Research UK is calling for a planned approach to combat treatment variation, citing enhanced data collection and investment in clinical audit as strategies to move forward with this.
Though no fixed conclusions have been drawn about why the UK lags in its service of cancer patients, it is hard to deny that NHS waiting times are at the heart of the issue of delayed treatment. Cancer Research UK has stated that the COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruption to cancer services, and though an in-depth examination is yet to be done about how this impacted cancer patients, the devastation of the NHS post-Covid cannot be ignored as a factor in the UK’s struggle to deliver an effective cancer strategy. The UCL researchers plan to answer this question in the next phase of their research.