Three-quarters of cancer patients in England will survive the disease by 2035 under a new government plan, as figures reveal someone is diagnosed with cancer every 75 seconds in the UK. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, a kidney cancer survivor, said the diagnosis made him fear death but that he owed his life to the NHS and was determined to improve outcomes for future patients.
The government will invest £2.3 billion to deliver an additional 9.5 million tests by 2029, expand robotic surgery, and offer genomic testing to all eligible patients. Ministers have pledged to meet three waiting-time standards by 2029, which have not been met since 2015, and increase five-year survival from the current 60% to 75% by 2035, saving 320,000 lives over the decade.
However, cancer survival in England lags behind several European countries, including Romania and Poland, and three-quarters of NHS hospital trusts are failing patients, according to a Guardian analysis. Professor Peter Johnson, NHS clinical director for cancer, said the plan set a “clear roadmap” to diagnose more cancers earlier and improve survival.
Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, welcomed the ambition but warned that “too many cancer patients” still wait too long for treatment. Sarah Woolnough of the King’s Fund cautioned that basic care must be delivered alongside new technology, noting that many hospitals still cannot share results promptly due to outdated systems.
The plan includes extending community diagnostic centre hours to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and increasing robot-assisted procedures from 70,000 to half a million by 2035. Streeting said the opportunity to transform cancer care existed thanks to advances in medical science and technology, and that the plan would “slash waits” and give every patient the best chance of beating the disease.
