Cancer patients, particularly the poor and the elderly are dying needlessly, the National Audit Office (NAO) has said.
The body, which analysed the latest data from the NHS, suggests as many as 20,000 deaths could be avoided every year if the cancer mortality rates of those who are poorest in the country were brought up to the level of those most well-off, the Daily Mail reports.
“Significant variations and inequalities in outcomes and access to services persist,” said the report by the body. “Outcomes and access to services are generally poorer for older patients.
“And those from more deprived socio-economic groups are more likely to experience worse outcomes compared with those from less deprived groups,” it continued.
Currently, five-year survival rates for cancer patients in the UK are 10 per cent behind the recorded average for the six wealthiest European nations.
The report concluded that “poorer access to treatment or poorer quality of care” is largely to blame for the gaps.
“People in England are less likely to develop cancer than in other high-income countries in Europe but, according to the most recent data, cancer outcomes in England have generally been worse,” it said.
“Outcomes are particularly poor in relative terms for older patients.”
Patients aged between 55 and 64 are around 20 per cent more likely to survive one year after being diagnosed with cancer compared to those aged 75 plus.
But the NAO says that this gap is too large to be attributed to frailty alone, and indicated that age discrimination might be at least partly to blame.
Fiona Tinsley, Medical Negligence Solicitor at Clear Law said: “This report by the NAO is deeply saddening.
“It shouldn’t matter if a patient is twenty or ninety, they should receive the same level of care from medical staff across the UK.
“Equally, it should make no difference whatsoever with regards to what background the patient has; whether they are well-off or slightly poorer, all patients should expect the same high-quality care as and when they need it.”
Labour MP Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said that she was “deeply disappointed” in discovering the “shocking disparity” in the UK’s cancer survival rates compared with Europe.
“There are also unacceptable inequalities within England that must be tackled,” she said.
Sean Duffy, national clinical director for cancer at NHS England, has accepted that cancer survival rates need to improve.
“Cancer survival rates in England are at an all-time high … it’s time for a fresh look at how we can do even better – with more focus on prevention, earlier diagnosis and modern radiotherapy and other services so that over the next five years we can save at least 8,000 more lives a year.
“We have established an independent cancer taskforce to produce a new five-year cancer strategy by the summer, which will set out what needs to be done to achieve this ambition,” he added.