Yorkshire leading the way in national cancer policy: Yorkshire Cancer Research statement on the National Cancer Plan

Yorkshire Cancer Research warmly welcomes the National Cancer Plan, published yesterday.

By committing to meeting all cancer waiting times by 2029 and pledging that 3 in 4 people diagnosed with cancer from 2035 will be cancer-free or living well after five years, the National Cancer Plan shows clear ambition to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer across the country.  

The charity has long called for a comprehensive national strategy on cancer and over the past few months, along with nearly 3,000 people living in Yorkshire, has campaigned for the inclusion of four key proposals in a national strategy:  

The National Cancer Plan reflects many of these priorities, including a strong focus on reducing geographical variation, strengthening prevention, improving early diagnosis and treatment, and taking meaningful steps towards fairer research funding.

Geographical inequalities

People in Yorkshire are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer and die from it than people living in many other regions of England. Ending unacceptable regional cancer inequalities was a core theme throughout the charity’s White Rose Cancer Report.  

The National Cancer Plan includes important steps towards ensuring people receive consistent, high-quality care no matter where they live. For example, the Plan introduces the Neighbourhood Early Diagnosis Fund, targeted workforce training, consistent NHS-wide adoption of technologies and new cancer standards and metrics. The publication of NHS performance data and the provision of intensive support for underperforming services, backed by £200 million in dedicated funding, can help identify and close the gaps that have caused inequalities to persist.

Yorkshire Cancer Research is pleased to see a commitment to streamlining cancer metrics and improving data quality, an approach the charity strongly advocated for in the White Rose Cancer Report to ensure service providers can effectively meet local need and reduce variation in provision. 

Cancer exercise treatment

Yorkshire Cancer Research is particularly pleased to see that, using the charity’s Active Together service as evidence, the National Cancer Plan sets out an ambition to ensure people with cancer can benefit from exercise before cancer treatment.  

The National Cancer Plan introduces new “cancer manuals” that will set clear national standards to ensure people across the country can consistently access exercise services before starting cancer treatment. This will be delivered as a digital-first service through the NHS App and other digital channels, directing people to digital services such as exercise classes and stop smoking support services.  

The National Cancer Plan also sets out that people with higher levels of medical need will be offered improved supportive oncology services, including rehabilitation, psychological support and preventative support.

Evidence from Active Together, the charity’s research-backed cancer exercise service, demonstrates that exercise, provided alongside nutrition and wellbeing support before, during and after cancer treatment, can save lives by increasing treatment options, building fitness before surgery, reducing side effects from treatment, reducing complications from surgery and speeding up recovery.  

The charity estimates that each year of providing prehabilitation and rehabilitation for everyone with cancer across the country would support more than 67,000 people each year and create almost 60,000  additional years of life.

The inclusion of quality standards for prehabilitation is a very positive step forward, establishing the importance of exercise before cancer treatment. However, while the charity welcomes the plan’s recognition of the importance of prehabilitation, to realise the benefits seen in the charity’s Active Together service this must move towards a more structured, personalised service. While a digital service may work well for some people, it will not be sufficient on its own to unlock the full benefits that prehabilitation and rehabilitation can offer. To maximise the potential life years gained, quality standards must set out a clear ambition to move towards a fully structured, personalised model of support, in line with the Active Together programme. This should include digital options where appropriate, but also ensure that in‑person, community-based programmes remain available.

Prehabilitation helps people to build strength, enabling them to better tolerate and withstand treatment. However, even for those who take part in prehabilitation, strength and fitness levels are weakened during treatment. Rehabilitation enables people to regain this after treatment.  

The rehabilitation phase of Active Together enables patients to rebuild their energy levels, reduce levels of fatigue, increase their levels of physical activity and rebuild health related quality of life, all of which are impacted by cancer treatment. It is also essential to improving survival and reducing the risk of cancer returning.  

It is therefore vital that all people with cancer, not only those assessed as having the highest level of need, are offered both prehabilitation and rehabilitation, so that the advantages of these services are realised as widely as possible.

The charity looks forward to working with the Government to develop a clear and ambitious roadmap to fully embed exercise, nutrition and wellbeing support for people before, during and after cancer treatment. 

Screening  

As recommended in the White Rose Cancer Report, the National Cancer Plan clarifies the plan for the roll out of lung cancer screening and reaffirms the commitment that all eligible people will be offered lung screening by 2030.

The charity strongly welcomes this commitment and estimates that if rolled out for all those eligible in the next five years, 144,000 people in Yorkshire would receive their first lung scan, with the potential to find thousands of lung cancers at an early stage, saving many lives.  

Yorkshire Cancer Research is also pleased to see recognition of the potential to detect other smoking-related cancers through combined screening approaches. Evidence from the Yorkshire Kidney Screening Trial demonstrates the value of this innovation. The National Cancer Plan commits to exploring the possibility of ‘moving the scanner down’ during lung cancer scans to detect other cancers.  

The National Cancer Plan also commits to completing the national roll out of self-testing for women who have not taken up the offer of cervical screening. This was also recommended in the White Rose Cancer Report, which highlighted the promising findings of the charity’s Catch-Up screening trial.

The charity estimates that adding kidney screening to lung cancer scans and providing at-home cervical screening would lead to an additional 6,730 years of life. 

Research  

Yorkshire Cancer Research is pleased to see that the Plan aligns closely with the charity’s ROSE model for research funding proposed in the White Rose Cancer Report, with commitments to accelerate the adoption of innovation, support real world implementation research and ensure more equitable access to clinical trials.

The charity’s ROSE model recommended that funding allocations incorporate Rapid implementation of research in the NHS, Optimise research implementation to address health inequalities, include Systematic evaluation of research findings in real-life settings and ensure Equitable funding within the clinical research environment.  

Yorkshire Cancer Research is pleased to see elements of the ROSE model fully incorporated into the National Cancer Plan with a strong emphasis on implementation.  

For too long people who do not live near major research centres have been unable to access cutting edge treatments and innovations.  

Despite being home to 8% of the UK population, Yorkshire receives only 5% of national medical research funding, while London, with 13% of the population, attracts 32% of the funding. This imbalance means people in Yorkshire are less likely to benefit from pioneering research, new technologies and lifesaving clinical trials.

The introduction of a Cancer Trials Accelerator Programme, standardised referral processes and expanding trial delivery into communities represent major steps towards ensuring that people across Yorkshire and across the country can access the latest advances in cancer treatment regardless of where they live.

We now need to see clear commitments to delivering these measures to ensure funding is allocated equitably.  

Yorkshire Cancer Research looks forward to working with partners to ensure these promises are delivered in full so that people in Yorkshire and beyond can live longer, healthier lives, free from cancer.