By Richard Johnstone | 15 January 2015
Cancer treatment outcomes vary significantly across England despite the NHS making improvements to provision since 2010, the National Audit Office has said.
Analysing the quality of treatment, auditors found the proportion of people surviving for one year and five years after diagnosis was now 69% for those diagnosed in 2012 and 49% for those diagnosed in 2008. These proportions are both increases on the rates when the NAO last examined survival rates in 2010.
However, five-year survival rates for those diagnosed between 2000 and 2007 remained about 10% lower than the European average. In addition, of the 280,000 people diagnosed with cancer in 2012, around one-third (31%) died within a year.
It is estimated that the NHS in England spent £6.7bn on cancer services in 2012/13, and today’s report said that available data had also improved since 2010 to help ensure the money can be spent effectively to help improve provision.
Despite this, outcomes for cancer patients and access to services vary significantly across the country. Cancer patients aged 55-64, for example, are 20% more likely to survive for at least one year after diagnosis than those aged 75-99.
While the report acknowledged that survival rates for people in the older age group are expected to be lower because they are frailer and less likely to cope with treatment, this was unlikely to explain fully this significant variation between age groups.
Those from more deprived socioeconomic groups were also likely to experience worse outcomes than those from less deprived groups. There would be nearly 20,000 fewer deaths from cancer each year if mortality rates for all socioeconomic groups were the same as for the least deprived.
Auditor general Amyas Morse said that the report found that outcomes for cancer patients have improved since 2010.
But he added: ‘Of course, there will always be variations in cancer outcomes, but the significant variations across the country, and the poorer outcomes for older patients and those from more deprived backgrounds, show that there is potential for improvement.
‘The gap in outcomes between England and the European average, shown in the latest data, also demonstrates this.’
