UK Health Radio – Medical News Update on the Hour - One-Week Wait for Cancer Diagnosis

UK Health Radio – Medical News Update on the Hour

One-Week Wait for Cancer Diagnosis

 The BBC have reported that The Labour Party is to pledge that if it wins the next election, by 2020 no-one in England will wait more than a week for cancer tests and results.

The party said the £750m cost would be covered by a levy on tobacco firms.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said it was "critical" to make improvements in the early diagnosis of cancer and that up to 10,000 lives a year could be saved as a result

But a Department of Health spokesman said Labour "simply can't be trusted to deliver improvements in cancer care".

currently a recommended six-week limit for diagnostic tests in England, is in place and that includes tests to diagnose cancer however it is clear that the number of people waiting longer than this is increasing. Labour will propose that within a week of being referred by their GP, a patient would have received both their tests and their results, meaning patients can start treatment sooner and suffer less anxiety while waiting for results,

Labour is also promising a one-week target for "all urgent diagnostics" - not just cancer - by 2025.

It would also launch "public awareness campaigns" to encourage people to visit their doctor and spot possible signs of cancer, introduce more training for GPs and consider new screening programmes for lung and ovarian cancer.

Mr Miliband is expected to say that it is critical to improve early diagnosis of cancer - a killer disease that one in three of us will get - so that we can match the best countries in the world for surviving it.

"with a plan paid for by money raised from the profits of the tobacco firms whose products have done so much to cause cancer in the first place." The Labour leader has been reported as saying.

In his party conference speech last month, Mr Miliband pledged an extra £2.5bn to, as he said, "save and transform the NHS".

But opponents say that none of that funding would be available until halfway through the next parliament.

Labour says the cancer test guarantee is one of the priorities for the £2.5bn fund.

Amanda Thomas

UK Health Radio – Medical News Update on the Hour

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