
Government 25% below cancer treatment target as charity says 20,000 deaths a year avoidable
The government’s failure to meet this target is putting people’s lives at risk.
Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey today called for a new legal right for cancer patients to start treatment within two months of an urgent referral, as part of a five-year plan to boost survival rates.
Ed Davey, who lost both his parents to cancer as a child, made the plan the centrepiece of his keynote speech to the party’s Conference in Bournemouth.
Ed Davey used his speech to highlight the Conservative Government’s neglect of cancer, with waiting time targets consistently missed and ministers ditching their promised ‘Ten-Year Cancer Plan’.
The Liberal Democrats are putting health at the heart of their campaign to win seats off the Conservatives in the Blue Wall at the next election. The new policy builds on existing plans such as introducing a right to see a GP within a week and expanding NHS dentistry so people aren’t forced to pay for private dental treatment.
The party has set out proposals to invest an extra £4 billion in NHS cancer treatment over the next five years to deliver this plan and improve survival rates by the end of the next Parliament.
The two-month target has been a government pledge since 2000, but hasn’t been met since 2015 and has never been written into law. More than 72,000 patients or two in five were left waiting more than two months to start treatment in the last year, as NHS waiting lists soar to a new record high.
Ed Davey has announced a new five-year plan to boost cancer survival rates.