Past and present NHS cancer leads at odds over progress on early diagnosis

National clinical cancer director Peter Johnson told MPs this morning that he was “cautiously optimistic” about the chances the NHS would meet an ambition to diagnose 75 per cent of cancers at an early stage by 2028. The figure currently stands at just under 55 per cent.

However, Sir Mike Richards, the NHS’s cancer lead between 1999 and 2012, claimed: “On current trajectories we are most unlikely to get there.”

Both were giving evidence to the health and social care committee’s cancer services inquiry.

Sir Mike, who continues to advise the government on both cancer and diagnostics, added that he “strongly supported the 2028 ambition” and set out a range of areas in which improvements could be made to support efforts to hit the benchmark.

He said: “[Based on Cancer Research UK’s analysis] if we eliminated variation across the country we could perhaps go up from 55 to 59 per cent; if we really pushed screening, by bringing in lung cancer screening and improving our bowel screening, that could be another four per cent; [better] early presentation and changing pathways, that might be another four per cent.

“Please don’t take these as absolute figures, but it shows what we need to do. And then there is a gap. That gap has to be filled with innovative approaches.”

Professor Richards, who also served as the Care Quality Commission’s chief inspector of hospitals between 2013 and 2019, said his assumption was based on the trajectory work carried out by the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership.

The key ambitions for cancer as set out in the 2019 NHS Long Term Plan, are that, by 2028, 55,000 more people each year will survive their cancer for five years or more; and by 2028, 75 per cent of people with cancer will be diagnosed at an early stage (stage one or two).

In response to questioning from committee chair Jeremy Hunt, Professor Johnson said: “I am cautiously optimistic [about hitting the 2028 ambition].

“I think not only the things we have in place, such as rapid diagnostics services and our screening programme for lung cancer, but also some of the innovations we have got… which admittedly we don’t know if they will deliver for us, but things like the blood tests which will pick up cancers at a very early stage… if they do what we hope they will do, they will really give us a rapid leg up and really accelerate progress.”

National cancer director Cally Palmer told MPs the NHS was on track to meet a commitment set out in the planning guidance to cut the cancer backlog to pre-pandemic levels.

She said there was currently a backlog of around 16,000 patients classified as cancer “long waiters”, meaning they had breached the target to begin treatment with 62 days of an urgent GP referral for suspected cancer.