Cancer is the disease most of us worry about. Three and a half million people in the country are living with it, and half of us will face it in the coming decades as the population continues to age. That’s why the National Cancer Plan is so important. Getting things right today is the difference between lives saved and lives lost tomorrow. We need patients to have the best available treatments, a cancer workforce fit for the future and action to avert the four in 10 preventable cancer cases.
Labour is keen to make its mark, but the government would be foolish not to build on the Conservatives’ achievements. By introducing the Cancer Drugs Fund, we delivered over 100 new cancer treatments into the hands of nearly 100,000 patients, extending and saving lives. Several drugs now used to treat breast cancer, prostate cancer and rare lymphomas were brought into reach.
Yet, representing a rural constituency, I know that access to cutting-edge treatments is often determined by geography rather than need. This is not only inequitable, it leaves clinicians guessing how well new drugs work in underrepresented communities. The plan must address this head-on, setting out clear steps to level-up access to novel treatments and clinical trials across the country.
Progress on rare cancers has stalled, and funding alone isn’t the problem. In 2018, £40m was allocated for brain tumour research, but only around £15m has been spent due to a lack of high-quality proposals. This year, pharmaceutical companies paused nearly £2bn in investment, with Novartis—a firm specialising in rare diseases—calling the UK “largely uninvestable”.
Recent changes to the medicine rebate scheme are a good start, but the government must go further. Tax raids on entrepreneurs and investors should be reversed. Profit cannot be a dirty word—it is both the incentive and the reward for developing new treatments. We also need the Rare Cancers Bill to become law, appointing a lead to drive research and improving how patients are connected to trials.
No cancer strategy will succeed without the workforce to deliver it. The previous government grew the total cancer workforce but demand continues to outstrip supply. The NHS ended last year with a 29 per cent shortfall of clinical radiologists, projected to grow to 39 per cent by 2029. Meanwhile, around a third of cancer and haematology wards in our hospitals fall short of planned nursing levels. Every delay to diagnosis and treatment translates into worse patient outcomes, so the Cancer and Workforce Plans must set out how we fill these gaps and retain talented practitioners.
Prevention must also play a central role. The Conservatives tackled the largest cause of cancer—tobacco—by legislating for a generational smoking ban, preventing up to 130,000 smoking-related cases over the next 50 years. Obesity, the second largest cause, still looms large. We are 20 per cent less active than in the 1960s, with one in four children today leaving primary school obese.
Instead of taxing milkshakes and telling supermarkets to shuffle their shelves, the government needs to set out measures to keep schoolchildren active and empower adults with the information necessary to make healthier choices. The expanding nanny state has done little to trim waistlines, but much to dent people’s confidence that they can make meaningful changes themselves.
Labour has failed to deliver several health strategies on time, pushing plans for cancer, the NHS workforce and brain injury into spring 2026. Every family touched by cancer knows that delay is a decision that carries life-changing consequences. One in two of us will face the disease, irrespective of when the government decides to get its act together. The plan must deliver. Lives depend on it.
