The National Cancer Plan – key commitments

The National Cancer Plan was published this month.

Below are the key commitments of the Plan, summarised for convenience:

1. Headline ambition – by 2035, three in four people diagnosed with cancer will be cancer-free, or living well with cancer after five years.
2. Roll the Lung Cancer Screening programme out nationally by 2030 and increase the sensitivity of bowel cancer screening.
3. Deliver 9.5 million additional tests by 2029 through £2.3 billion investment in diagnostics, ensuring as many CDCs as possible are fully operational and open 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.
4. Cancer care will be designed around patients’ lives with every patient being offered a personalised cancer plan. Every patient will have a named neighbourhood cancer lead to coordinate their care after treatment.
5. Prioritise access to specialist treatment for patients with rare cancers and improve approaches to quality monitoring.
6. Establish clear quality standards for cancer delivery through cancer manuals, published by tumour type.
7. Children and young people with cancer and their families will get better support, including costs for travelling for cancer care paid for by the NHS.
8. Develop locally targeted campaigns to improve the awareness of cancer risk factors, reduce the gap in screening uptake and address barriers to early diagnosis in underserved communities.
9. Publish regular data and assess performance to ensure the NHS is reducing the gap in rates of early diagnosis between the most and least deprived areas.
10. Appoint a national lead for rarer cancers and drive up survival rates to match the top nations in Europe.
11. Prevent as many cancers as possible by cracking down on illegal underage sunbed use, eliminating cervical cancer through HPV vaccination, tackling obesity and creating the world’s first smoke-free generation.
12. By 2028, the NHS App will be the front door for cancer care, allowing patients to manage screening invitations, appointments, and treatment plans.
13. By 2035, the NHS App will bring together genomic and lifestyle data with the single patient record to provide personalised risk profiles and prevention advice.
14. A new cancer trials accelerator will make the NHS the first-choice partner for cancer clinical trials.
15. More patients will be able to access genomic testing, both to find more people with a higher inherited risk of cancer and to ensure every patient needing a genomic test to support treatment receives one.
16. Focused on partnership: work with academia and life sciences to drive innovation and expand access to clinical trials, as well as charities, pension funds, social enterprise and wider civil society to deliver more for cancer patients.
17. Prioritise improvement in the most challenged trusts through intensive support and by giving data and digital tools to improve.

See the full Plan here.

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